I met this gentleman in his early 50s a few years back, let's call him Mr. Shui Yu.
Mr. Shui had (and actually still has) an affinity for what he calls "hot, sexy and wild" women. He primarily meets these women at bars and on Sugar Daddy dating sites, the type of sirens who are 24/7 in bodycon hugging satin dresses, forever posing for the gram in Michelin starred restaurants, and prancing around town toting Hermes bags worth more than your condo.
Mr. Shui came to my law office one day spewing all varieties of Cantonese slurs - "That Sl*t! That C*nt! That Wh*re!"
Loosely translated, he was ranting to me about how his latest bombshell ex-girlfriend of 1 year had fully taken advantage of him monetarily, making him spend hundreds of thousands of RM on fine dining, designer bags, and get this... he had even serviced her housing loan repayments for her.
Alas, after going through her phone, he discovered that she was merely using him for financial gain whilst bonking a younger, more virile stallion on the side.
Mr. Shui's question to me (verbatim) was:
"Can I recover the value of all the gifts and money I had spent on that b*tch?"
I asked Mr. Shui "Was there ever any explicit agreement between yourself and your ex that all these gifts and money was a repayable loan?"
"Of course not la, but how can I let her get away just like that?"
"Unfortunately, if there was never any agreement to repay, all these transfers of value will likely be seen in law as "gifts", which legally are not recoverable as a debt per se. Clearly, the intention at the time was that you never expected any repayment from her, at least not until things went south."
On the other hand, unlike Mr. Shui's predicament, I had recently also handled another similar case where a woman successfully demanded and received repayment from her ex-husband, because of the existence of Whatsapp messages between them where the parties had clearly agreed "I am giving you this RM 50,000 as a loan and repayment will be made within 12 months."
The difference between the two situations is the *intention*. If you gave money with no intention of it being a repayable loan, you cannot suddenly gostan and demand repayment just because you have become unhappy with the other person.
The moral of the story is that the law is not relationship insurance. It does not refund bad taste in partners, does not compensate you for ignoring red flags in exchange for a "hot, sexy and wild" face.
If you intended to give someone a gift, you gotta own that decision. You cannot suddenly relabel it as a "loan" years later simply because the relationship exploded or another stallion took your place.
The law looks at what you intended when the money left your bank account, not what you wish you had intended after discovering someone else had been enjoying the fruits of your generosity.
As painful as Mr. Shui's story was, his biggest mistake was believing that every expensive dinner, every designer bag and every housing loan payment was somehow "buying" loyalty.
Long story short - the law is great at recovering debts, but unfortunately it cannot recover poor judgment.
Rudi Cheu (rudi@rulecolaw.com) is a content creator under the Newswav Creator programme, where you get to express yourself, be a citizen journalist, and at the same time monetize your content & reach millions of users on Newswav. Log in to creator.newswav.com and become a Newswav Creator now!
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