Even if you don’t want to pursue it, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with letting your lawyer let your uncle know that you are VERY WELL AWARE that he lied to you, in a very legalese-y manner. That way, on the (as you say, very) off chance that you should ever have to cross paths again, he will know not to fuck with you. As of right now, he walks away thinking he pulled one over on you, and there isn’t anything to stop him from trying again, if the opportunity presents itself.
As another poster above said, you have an opportunity to prevent the establishment of a precedent. Hopefully, it will never be an issue for you in the future, but if the lawyer’s willing to do it for free, for God’s sake, let him send a damn letter to your uncle.
Or the uncle is currently thinking that he’s successfully conned Diosa and having established dominance in his own mind will disappear back into the mists of estranged relatives never to trouble our plucky heroine no more and sending a letter will only enrage him and cause him to attempt some other maneuver to upset, inconvenience or otherwise annoy Diosa. The only person qualified to make these calls has decided not to pursue the matter and of all the dopers I consider to have their heads on straightest, Diosa is one of them.
Eh – Diosa knows I’ve got plenty of respect for her head. For her sake, I hope the guy does vanish. I am just very wary of people becoming emboldened when they think they’ve gotten away with something. But the bottom line is that I agree with you, in that she’s got a better vantage point on it than any of us.
Just thought I’d post a lil’ update: it’s all done. I’ve been formally dismissed from the action.
All in all, I’m bitter that I even had to pay a few hundred bucks to deal with this, but I’m happy it’s done. And if nothing else, I’ve learned that my uncle is an even bigger scumbag fuckwit liar than I ever thought. So, there’s that.
My uncle can handle his own daughter’s problem however he sees fit-- that’s his minor child, after all. I sent the release over to my mom, but who knows if she ever sent it in. You can lead a horse to water and all of that.
True. I was just curious how far GMAC’s pool has shrunk and if the karmic result of your uncle’s malfeasance is that he ends up on the hook for everything anyway.
When someone considers a situation as being so inconsequential to their life as to not being worth dealing with, it’s difficult to imagine that any potential exists for that person to BE “screwed over.”