General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Lending money to someone is an aggressive, dangerous act [View all]bhikkhu
(10,715 posts)...the exception being an auto lease, which had a restriction that the vehicle could only be registered on the west coast. Needless to say, I only found out about that restriction after my company transferred me to the east coast and I tried to register my car in my new state and wasn't allowed to. While I was wrangling with the company over options I got pulled over and the car impounded, as I answered the officer honestly that I had been there 3 months and he replied the requirement was to register the car within 30 days, so it was considered an unregistered vehicle. I never did get it released to me - the bank had it shipped back to WA and auctioned, and billed me for the difference of the lease pay-off, plus costs. I've always paid my debts before and since but that one stuck in my craw and I wasn't going to slave to pay them off for years (me being 20-something at the time), declared bankruptcy and the bank wrote it off.
Other than that no problems. A couple times I've had loans where the terms weren't comfortable, and I was able to refinance them to better terms with other banks. My brother was in a rotten home loan when the recession hit, he was able to take advantage of the HAMP program and get a very good new loan.
None of that is easy without a basic education in economics, but I don't know any legal way around assuming competence on the part of a borrower.
My ex wife is another example, who didn't have a job for many years while raising kids, and still doesn't. Yet during the heyday before the recession she was able to acquire $85,000 in credit lines (she told me once), and amassed about $60k in debts, with no income. At one time there was the possibility that I could have tried to help work out a repayment plan, but I wasn't legally entangled or even entitled to any accurate information, by either party involved. The whole mess to me showed a mutual incompetence, both lender and borrower, and I stayed out of it.