Legal Question in Civil Litigation in Virginia

Re: money owed

You could file a warrant in debt in general district court against your former girlfriend for the full $9000. The Virginia Statute of Frauds codified at 11-2 of the Va. Code exempts amounts less than $25000 from the requirement that there must be a writing which gives evidence of the

agreement in order to make it enforceable. However, you would still be faced with the problem of proving this oral contract and the fact that, apparently, it's basically one of these so-called "he said v. she said" situations

with little, if any, evidence to support your version of matters.

It's possible, of course, that once your ex was served with papers by the sheriff to appear in court, that she might thereupon agree to get serious about paying you at least part of what is owed. However, if some kind of settlement was not worked out and the matter proceeded to trial, at that point you might have little choice but to engage the services of an attorney in order to have any chance of winning your case.

Re: money owed

An oral contract is just as enforceable as a written contract (with certain exceptions like the sale of real estate). The problem is proving it. What typically happens is that one person gets up on the witness stand and says there was an agreement, and the other person gets up and denies it. Because you have the burden of proof, a 50-50 tie means you lose in terms of proving what the agreement was.

However, the only problem is evidence, not the law.

In your case, I suppose you might have a paper trail in which the money was actually transferred to pay off a credit card account in her name. This would be fairly strong evidence, in addition to your testimony, that you loaned her the money, because there is no other plausible explanation for this transfer other than a loan.

I am a little bit concerned if you say that the agreement was to make installment payments, because an agreement that CANNOT be completed within one year must be in writing. If an oral agreement COULD be performed within 1 year, but in fact takes longer, that's okay. So if it is possible that she could have paid it off within 1 year, then you will be okay.