Suing ex-roomate to recover money owed

I am in Massachusetts.

Basically I am owed $4,000 by an ex-roommate. The loan was made over 2 years ago. The total debt owed at one point was about $7,000 but $3,000 was paid Aug. 2007.

I was asked to wait until the end of 2007 for the remainder but so far nothing has been received. Now the person claims I gave them the money as a gift.

I have a lot of email correspondence between us the last two years that would back my claim that the money was a loan.

What are my options to have this money paid back?
The person is an international student and claims they have no money, yet they attend a private school in Boston and receives wires from parents every 4 or 5 months for support.

Do you have anything else in writing that proves this loan was made (such as a cancelled check)? The e-mails are fairly good evidence but you don't know for sure if they will be accepted in your state as valid evidence as the other side could always falsely claim that they weren't the person who sent them.

Hi Dandy Dom,

I have a letter she wrote asking for my help, I have a check I made out to her school, online payments I made to her credit cards from my account, and basically the email correspondence right up until I informed her last week I would be looking into taking her to court to recover the money.

Need advice

hello bostonhomhom,

I am from boston as well and I have similar situation. Somone owes me $4000 and is denying to pay it back. I am not sure which court i should take him to. At small claims court i can claim only upto $2000. I have an agreement signed by him.

Did you get your money back yet? If yes what did you do inorder to get it back. Please let me know..

Thank you.

I just found out that before you take this person to court you should first send her certified mail notifying that if she doesn't return your money within 14 days you will be taking legal action. And after that you can take her to the court. There is small claims court. But here in Mass its only up to $2000. May be you can claim it in civil court or trial court. I don't know which forms need to be filled. I will let you know once i find out.

somthing to think about is even if you win judgement - is the person able to pay?
Winning a judgement and then collecting are two different birds.

I had a similer issue and chose to go the small claims route and pass on the additional I could get in a civil court. Small claims may be the way to go.