A woman will have to pay $396,115.20 back to her nanny after borrowing between $600,000 and $700,000 to buy a house in Richmond.
Yuhua Xu, who worked as a housekeeper and nanny for Huiqing (Claire) Yang, filed a civil claim against Yang in B.C. Supreme Court, claiming Yang asked her for the money to purchase a house on Cornwall Drive near No. 1 Road and Westminster Highway.
Xu, 54, began working for Yang in April 2019. Shortly after that, Yang began negotiations to buy the Richmond house and moved into the house within the same month.
Xu told the court Yang first asked Xu for money to purchase the house in May 2019. Xu and her son claimed they travelled to Nanaimo with a friend at one point to meet Yang and give her $30,000 in cash in a hotel parking lot.
According to Xu, Yang promised to put Xu’s name on the title and said Xu would get half the increase in the property’s value when Yang sold the house in six months. In addition to wanting her money back with interest, Xu also claimed she held an equitable interest in the house.
Yang’s evidence for why Xu gave her money, the terms of repayment and the amount she currently owes Xu painted a completely different picture.
According to Yang, Xu was her stock trading client, and the money was provided to Yang for investment purposes. She claimed some investments “did not do particularly well” and she paid Xu some of the money back but there are still outstanding amounts.
However, since Yang repeatedly failed to comply with court orders to show documents proving the money was for investment, the court deemed she admitted that she owes a debt to Xu and that she used Xu’s money to buy the Richmond house.
Attempts to settle the debt
When Yang and Xu met up on March 29, 2020, the two did their calculations and agreed that Yang owed Xu $680,100.
By then, more than eight months had passed since Yang bought the house. Xu had continued to send money to Yang despite Yang terminating her employment September 2019. The sums included money Xu borrowed from friends and family, as well as from mortgaging her property in China.
Xu took out a second mortgage on her property in China to repay her cousin but did not repay her friend, Xiao E. Pan. According to WeChat messages provided to the court, by April 2020, Pan became “increasingly aggressive in seeking repayment of her loan” to Xu.
“I’m telling you old Xu: If you let me down, I’ll make (you) family-bankrupt and people-dead. Mind you, my morality will be lost in the face of your unkindness,” reads the English translation of Pan’s WeChat message.
To appease Pan, Yang wrote an IOU on May 2, 2020 to prove she owed Xu money. Xu’s son, Mike, also filled in a cheque made out to Xu for $701,054 and Yang signed it on May 4. Xu claimed Yang volunteered to pay back all the money she owed with an extra amount “for (Xu’s) troubles,” but Yang told the court Xu had asked her to write a fake cheque to show Pan her debt was secure.
Xu told the court she tried to cash the cheque a couple of times but to no avail.
In Madam Justice Amy Francis’s judgment, she noted Pan had gone to Xu’s home in May and deleted WeChat messages that would “disadvantage” Pan, which was “one of the many disturbing events” that took place at the time.
During the same month, Yang transferred $50,000 to Xu as partial repayment but then Xu sent the sum back to Yang within the space of two days for reasons unclear to the court.
Things came to a head on May 25, 2020, when Xu went to see Yang at the Richmond house.
According to Xu, she went there after receiving threatening texts from Yang. Xu claimed the two argued and Yang, along with her boyfriend, forcibly confined Xu in the house for a period of time before letting her go. She then called the police.
Yang, on the other hand, said she anticipated meeting with Xu and Pan to settle the debt. She claimed she feared for her physical safety due to Pan’s threats. She told the court Xu, along with Pan who was on the phone, wanted to cash the $701,054 cheque and give Yang back the extra money. Yang disagreed.
Yang told the court her boyfriend entered the house during the conversation and argued with Pan over the phone, but denied he was violent with Xu.
Xu, who was later fired from another caregiving job on May 29, believed it was Yang’s fault and made a sign and a cloth headband that said “Yang, repay me my money of blood and sweat” in both English and Chinese.
“She put the headband on, carried the sign, and went to the (Richmond house), where she stood across the street from the Property shouting until the police were called and attended,” wrote judge Francis in her judgment.
Both parties had questionable credibility: Judge
Judge Francis acknowledged that the evidence from Xu and Yang is “diametrically opposed on almost every material factual issue in this case.”
Since “at least one of the parties has been untruthful with the court,” she would have to assess their credibility carefully.
She concluded Xu was not credible in claiming Yang promised her an interest in the property, as evidence such as the IOU, the cheque and the WeChat messages never mentioned the promise, and Xu and Pan’s demands for repayment were “never contingent on the sale of the (Richmond house).”
Francis also doubted Xu’s credibility as she would recall “with precision” evidence potentially helpful to her case but would claim to have “no memory at all” on other topics. Xu also claimed Pan was a friend and refused to admit Pan had threatened her.
“This evidence is wholly incredible in light of the text messages Ms. Pan sent to Ms. Xu, which included at least one death threat,” wrote Francis, who added that Xu’s son and another friend’s evidence “had a repetitive and rehearsed quality” like Xu’s.
She agreed that Yang’s claim that Xu gave her money as part of an investment scheme was “somewhat more plausible” but suffered from “obvious flaws” including the lack of written records of the investments and the lack of evidence proving Yang was an investment dealer.
Based on her concerns about Yang and Xu’s credibility, Francis rejected their submissions on how much money was given to Yang in the first place as well as the outstanding amount. After doing her own calculations, the judge concluded that Xu gave Yang $627,915.20 in total, and Yang has repaid $231,800 so far.
She ultimately ruled Yang should repay Xu $396,115.20, without prejudgment interest, and dismissed Xu’s other claims.
