Abu Dhabi Court orders two defendants to repay Dhs179,000 debt

Abu Dhabi Family, Civil and Administrative Cases Court obligated two people to pay Dhs179,000 to another plus a fine of Dhs6,000 for failing to repay the money they had borrowed from him as a debt though they signed agreements to this effect.

Earlier, the plaintiff filed a lawsuit against the defendants in which he requested the court to obligate them jointly to pay him Dhs179,000, this being the remaining amount after deducting the Dhs13,000 that they had partially paid.

He also requested that they be obligated to pay Dhs10,000 in compensation for the financial and moral harms as well as psychological pains that he had befallen due to their delayed payment and their bad faith in issuing cheques drawn on a closed account.

In addition, he requested the court to obligate the defendants to pay legal interest at 12 per cent annually from the date of filing the lawsuit until full payment of the amount with immediate enforcement without a bail.

The plaintiff pleaded that one of the defendants borrowed Dhs100,000 under a loan agreement and signed two cheques in his favor for Dhs50,000 each, adding that the two defendants jointly borrowed Dhs92,000, according to a second loan agreement that they signed.

The two agreements explicitly showed their commitment to return the amounts within one year or within 10 days from the date they were asked to return the money, he said.

The defendants, however, only paid Dhs13,000 and their commitment to pay the remaining amount of Dhs179,000 was still in place, he added, noting that the two cheques were on a closed account that belonged to a trade licence that had expired several years ago.

After reviewing the documents submitted by the plaintiff, the court stated that as they admitted that they had paid Dhs13,000 and did not deny the remaining amount in question, the defendants must return Dhs179,000 to the plaintiff.

Failing to return the amount subject of the lawsuit led the plaintiff to suffer from material and moral harms as represented in failing to benefit from the amount claimed and delay in implementing the agreement, and hence the court estimates the due compensation for all material and moral harms at Dhs6,000.