A 94-year-old former New Westminster Citizen of the Year is suing a Mission couple for $100,000 to recover what she alleges are unpaid loans.
Mona Forsyth was the coordinator of the New Westminster food bank for more than 15 years.
She was recognized for her longtime volunteer work with a Citizen of the Year Award in 2009 and with a Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Medal in 2013.
In a notice of civil claim filed in B.C. Supreme Court, Forsyth says Jodi Jones and Iain Slark, a couple who now live in Mission, asked to borrow money from her and that she lent them $50,000 in July 2017 and another $50,000 three months later.
Both amounts were repayable on demand, according to Forsyth’s claim, but Jones and Slark have refused to pay her back.
The couple, however, maintains both $50,000 payments were a gift.
Forsyth and Jones were “very close friends having a relationship resembling that of a grandmother and granddaughter,” according to the couple’s response to civil claim, and Forsyth had offered to give her $50,000 to help her buy a home in Mission.
Forsyth had then signed a note saying the money was a gift “and will never have to be repaid” according to couple’s version of facts.
When it was discovered Jones and Slark’s home needed extensive renovations before they could move in, Forsyth had offered to give them another $50,000, they said.
“At no time material to this action did the plaintiff advance any fund to the defendants on the condition that such funds were to be repaid,” states the couple’s response to civil claim.
According to Forsyth, however, the couple owes her $100,000 plus interest.
None of the allegations has been proven in court.
