Good morning,

1. A friend gave me a loan a couple of years ago with the understanding of repaying as soon as possible. I was successfully making a living then as a freelancer.
2. With the great financial crisis, all went tumbling down and we had to make an arrangement (including mediation, at his request, which I accepted) to pay by installments (which constituted almost half of my monthly living costs). I also had to neglect all other debts with financial institutions that were pressing me to repay my debts with them, not to mention the pressure of daily living costs… all just to keep paying this particular individual).
3. With the friend being upset for the great delay I caved in and suggested to compensate him with interest, in the form of an agreed sum that will be paid at the end of the base loan being re-payed. He was threatening me to sue so I tried to be fair to him (and he accepted although in my book, “friends” are not supposed to ask for interest)
4. Being in financial hardship (Centrelink benefits for a long time afterwards) and the debt being quite a large amount (5000) it took quite a few years to repay the whole amount in installments and just finalised last week.
5. In the meantime, all other financial institutions that I had postponed all these years (including ATO) have been pressing me with repayments, and I managed to juggle with arrangements and/or breaking arrangements in order to finalise this debt with this guy. Out of all the debt collectors, he was the only one who threatened consistently with taking me to court, and I only avoided this situation by accepting to go into mediation, pay regularly and show proof of Centrelink payments (just to show good will and stop him from continuously harassing me with emails).
6. We are therefore finding ourselves now in a new situation: the interest. I have just finalised the payment of the debt IN FULL and wrote to him that he should expect me to get back to him by the end of Sept to discuss arrangements for the interest, due to my financial hardship and the fact that I do have to address other important debts that I put aside to make his regular payments. I can’t afford to be taken to court by banks or ATO and I do wish to finalise all debs on all fronts and carry on with my life.
7. He flipped out saying that in mediation we arranged to keep paying, to keep showing him my private documents (Centrelink or other income) or else… Mediation papers were never legalised and never stated that I should pay the interest in instalments anyway… it was open ended from what I recall, we agreed that it would be paid as soon as possible after the base loan was finalised.
8. I have politely declined his immediate demands to continue at his will, and explained that he should expect me to discuss and resume payments in 3 month’s time, when I might be in a better position to take care of this matter. Also, that the interest is his profit and he can be flexible in waiting, especially that I was the one suggesting to compensate for the lengthy repayments of the debt (waiting which I understand he is sick of, but this is the situation we are in). I am still in a fragile position financially and with all good will, I can’t afford to resolve this at his “command”. Nor do I wish to expose my private affairs with him anymore (financial Situation, documents etc), considering that I have actually paid him what he was owed in the first place.

My question: does he have a case had he decided to take me to court? Can he actually take me to court? And also, is he/was he entitled to me showing candidly my private affairs…. Am I protected by Privacy Laws to not share my private life, sensitive documents, address etc (I tried to keep the communications lines open but I definitely refused to give him the new physical address, to protect myself and the others living under the same roof who didn’t agree to give away their private address to an angry and potentially out of control person).

Many thanks and looking forward to your feedback.

Kinds regards.
Jane