An elderly couple who loaned their daughter and her husband over $135,000 to buy and renovate a series of homes have successfully won a court battle against their former son-in-law to pay back the money after their daughter died of cancer.
Andrew and Robyn Mereniuk made three large loans to their daughter Louise and her husband Matthew Wilks between April 2006 and August 2017 so that they could purchase and renovate properties for themselves and their three daughters.
But any requests for loan repayments came to an abrupt halt in August 2016 when Louise was diagnosed with bowel cancer. She died from the disease in January 2019.
Mr and Mrs Mereniuk launched a legal case against Mr Wilks in November 2022 to try to recoup their money after falling out with him because he had an affair with another woman in the six months before Louise’s tragic death, according to a judgement published in the NSW District Court.
Mr Wilks argued in court that he knew nothing of the loans, while also claiming they were gifts made to his now-deceased wife.
But Judge Judith Gibson described Mr Wilks as a ‘wholly unreliable witness’ and awarded Mr and Mrs Mereniuk $135,269 for the outstanding money.
It is understood that Mr Wilks intends to launch an appeal against the judgment.
The case highlighted the vexed legal issue of the ‘Bank of Mum and Dad’ and whether payments to family members are considered gifts or loans, Judge Gibson said.
Andrew and Robyn Mereniuk made three large loans to their daughter Louise and her husband Matthew Wilks (pictured) between April 2006 and August 2017 so that they could purchase and renovate properties for themselves and their three daughters
But any loan repayments came to an abrupt halt in August 2016 when Louise (pictured) was diagnosed with bowel cancer. She died from the disease in January 2019
The saga began in April 2006 when Mr Mereniuk offered to buy material and renovate the Baulkham Hills home his daughter shared with her husband.
‘We can purchase the material and you and Louise can pay us back when you can afford it,’ Mr Mereniuk recalled saying.
They transferred a total of $169,000, with the cost of materials bought or money loaned recorded in a spreadsheet.
‘Substantial repayments’ made by Mr and Mrs Wilks later reduced this sum to $28,254.
A second loan of $76,000 was advanced to help Mr and Mrs Wilks buy a larger property in Kellyville around 35km north-west of Sydney’s CBD in April 2012.
But a year before that, in February 2011, Mr and Mrs Mereniuk had expressed their ‘disappointment’ that Mr and Mrs Wilks were overspending.
‘The $35,000 over three years means that you both are spending around $12,000 a year more than you two earn. Or, you have thrown caution to the wind, and are spending it like it was your own,’ Mr Mereniuk wrote.
‘The reason that we lent you the money in the first place was to help you both out and it appears that we have certainly accomplished that in that you both have helped yourselves to it. The latter was not our intention nor desire.’
Mr Mereniuk suggested they had spent $15,000 more than they initially budgeted for.
‘Have you two stopped budgeting? Is Matthew spending what he earns on himself? Smokes, drink, lunches etc.?’, he wrote.
‘What were you two thinking, that you were going to repay it, and if you were, in what time frame?’
He added: ‘Earlier I mentioned that you overspent by $12,000 a year which means roughly $250 a week, You two need to sit down and nut out what can be eliminated and what can be reduced otherwise you two will lose your house in the long run or you will need to downsize.
In February 2011, Mr Mereniuk suggested that his son-in-law quit smoking because ‘this amounts to probably $30-40 a week’
‘We are not here to prop you up nor save your marriage.’
Mr Mereniuk also suggested that his son-in-law quit smoking because ‘this amounts to probably $30-40 a week’.
‘We are not bitter nor are we baying for the full return of the money. What we want though, is the return of the balance of the money from the two offset accounts,’ he wrote.
‘We also want a commitment from both of you that you are not going to touch the redraw amount. If you cannot make that commitment then you might as well take the money out and return that also to us.’
Mr Wilks denied knowledge of the transactions, while also trying to claim they were gifts to his now-deceased wife.
These seemingly contradictory arguments held no water with Judge Gibson who accused him of being a ‘wholly unreliable witness, whose account of events was not simply implausible but at times knowingly false’.
‘The defendant’s claim that he never knew how much he had in the bank or consulted his banking or financial records, but instead rang up Louise each time he wanted to make a purchase or take out money, is completely implausible, the more so because he was running a business at this time which would have required regular access to the bank and consideration of banking records,’ Judge Gibson concluded.
In 2015, Mr and Mrs Wilks decided to move to Tumbi Umbi on NSW’s Central Coast.
They planned to sell their Kellyville property to fund the purchase but then Mrs Wilks’ cancer diagnosis in August 2016 ‘changed everything’.
Mr and Mrs Mereniuk claim they advanced a total of $80,000 on the condition that when the Tumbi property was eventually sold the total amount, plus the $80,000, was to be paid back.
Mr Wilks sold the property in December 2019, almost a year after his wife died.
In 2015, Mr and Mrs Wilks decided to move to Tumbi Umbi on NSW’s Central Coast (pictured)
He kept the proceeds, ‘save for the sum of $154,000 which has been retained in a solicitor ’s trust account pending the outcome of these proceedings’, the judgement noted.
It is also understood that Mr and Mrs Mereniuk unsuccessfully tried to challenge Mr Wilks’ claim to their daughter’s superannuation with the Australian Financial Complaint Authority.
The judgment noted that both parties had ‘not only a financial interest in the outcome but also a degree of hostility motivating them’.
‘The plaintiffs believed (correctly, as it turned out) that the defendant’s absence during the six months prior to Louise dying of cancer was because he was having an affair with another woman,’ Judge Gibson wrote.
It was revealed that the grandparents ‘stepped into a parenting role’ of their daughter’s children before her death after there were ‘issues in the marriage’ between Mr and Mrs Wilks.
Ultimately, the judge ruled that the money had been in the form of a loan, rather than a gift.
‘The plaintiffs were giving the defendant and Louise financial assistance in the form of a series of separate loans for separate purposes, but as “the Bank of Mum and Dad”, not “the Giftshop of Mum and Dad””,’ Judge Gibson wrote.
‘They expected repayment but at the same time took issues relevant to love and affection into account; in particular, while Louise was dying of cancer and the marriage clearly in trouble, they forbore to ask for funds in circumstances where I am satisfied that there was an understanding that further repayments would not fall due until the Tumbi Umbi property was sold.’
But it acknowledged that ‘in the future, courts may consider that the phenomenon of the “Bank of Mum and Dad” may be interpreted differently’.
The judgment notes research by the Productivity Commission that ‘if “Mum and Dad” were an actual bank, it would be somewhere between the fifth and ninth biggest mortgage lender in Australia’.
When approached for comment by Daily Mail Australia on Thursday, Mr Wilks said he felt he had been ‘hard done by’.
‘I really can’t comment on it at the moment but I’m quite interested to talk to you later on because I’ve been hard done by but at this stage I’m not willing to make a statement,’ he said.
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