Amicable Settlement turning BAD

Hello everyone,

Here is my dilema (we re in Belgium):

My friend's dad owns a building. He has in it an appartement that I decided to rent for 350 a month from september, also buying the furniture for 500euros. We did no contract as i ve known them for 5years (idiot me). The only proof i have is a bank transfer of 1200e (2 months of rent+500e furniture) where i wrote what the money was for and some emails where we were negotiating the furniture.

Problem: suddenly, they all decided to move to Brasil and sell all their properties including the building i wanted to live in. They do not want to give me back the 500euros for the furniture saying: 'that s it, you bought them'

What can i do legally? I m a student in my first year of law so i can say i m pretty much ashamed that i put myself in such a situation.

Thank you oh so very much.

Den

I'm not sure I understand. You wanted to rent the unit for 350 a month and to buy the current furniture for 500. They decided to leave the country and sold this building. You don't have a written lease so, they have refunded your rent. Is this correct?

But they did not refund the 500 for the furniture. Did they give you the furniture you bought? If they did, they owe you nothing. Everything has been either given to you or refunded. If you didn't receive the furniture you bought, you need to go and get that furniture. Have a witness with you when you go to collect it. If they refuse to give you the furniture or it isn't there, you will have a witness to testify about that. Then you can sue the people for the 500 you paid for the furniture you didn't receive. (File quickly before they leave the country. Then get an injunction to freeze their bank account before they close it out.)

Yep that s about it. They want to give me the 700 for the rent but not the 500 for the furniture (but they do want to give the furniture back).
The thing is i don t want the furniture anymore, as in the initial deal they proposed to let me buy the furniture of the studio in order to 'help'. Now, in other conditions i would have never bought the furniture if it was not in the studio i was renting.

I thought that i could argue saying that a part of the deal is off so the entire deal is off. The initial conditions change. Or that the accessories follow the entity...(i don t know if the terminology is correct in english)...

Would that make any sense?

Thank you!!!!!!!!

Don't know if that would work. Your renting the unit isn't tied to the buying of the furniture. That is, one is not dependent on the other. Either could happen alone. You would need furniture no matter where you rented. You would need a place, even if you didn't buy their furniture. So I don't know if you could argue that. Did you specifically tie the two together? "I'll buy the furniture from you IF I rent the unit?" If not, you may be stuck with some new furniture.

Yes, the deal was rather on the other hand. I ll take the furniture if i have the appartement (as the offer was rather good.. too good to be true apparently). I contacted a lawyer here and he asked me to send him the bank transfer as he thinks there might be a chance to get the money back. The landlord declared at our last call: 'if you don't like it then call a lawyer, but you are entering the courtyard of adults'.......creepy. Well... i m praying to enter and not get bullied.

I'm afraid the lawyer may cost you more than the 500 you are out.

....true