Loan may cost pair their home

A Durban attorney has denied he threatened, intimidated, abused or harassed a La Mercy couple who say they were forced into a dodgy loan of R500 000 involving the attorney and two businessmen.

Anandraj Dookhi, 56, and his wife, Chundalawath, 51, secured an urgent interim interdict preventing attorney Devin Moodley and two businessmen, Sandragasen Naicker and Calvin Gabriel, from transferring ownership of the couple’s property or interfering with them in any way.

The couple approached attorney Monoshan Govender for help, saying they had been threatened and intimidated into signing over their property.

They told the Durban High Court they had been warned of a “bloodbath” after they battled with the repayments.

This week, in court papers, Moodley denied the allegations against him, saying theat they were “far detached from the truth”.

In their affidavit, the La Mercy couple said that they had borrowed money from Naicker and that Moodley had handled the transaction and the loan repayments.

Acknowledgement

Dookhi said he initially approached businessman Faizel Mohammed for the loan in September last year to buy trucks for a business venture. He said he could not secure a bank loan as both he and his wife were unemployed.

Dookhi said Mohammed referred him to Gabriel who “was in the business of providing loans”.

He said that he later met Moodley and was told Moodley’s client, Naicker, was providing the loan.

Dookhi said he had been reluctant to go ahead with the loan after he had found out that it involved the sale of their La Mercy property to Moodley if repayments were not met.

He said when he protested, he was assaulted and told to “just keep quiet and sign the agreement”.

The couple said they were made to sign an acknowledgment of debt for R650 000 and that they battled with the last few payments.

Moodley’s secretary allegedly called them and said there would be a “bloodbath at their house” if the money was not paid immediately. Moodley denied this.

Further, he said, in court papers, the application was “clearly launched in an attempt to permanently interdict the transfer of registration of the property and without any tender of payment of the loan advanced, but to date, not repaid in full”.

Moodley said Naicker did not provide the loan and that it was another investor, who did not want to be named, who was prepared to take the risk.

Intimidate

He said there was no reason to intimidate or threaten the couple as they had already agreed to terms of the loan and that the couple had approached him, “not the other way around”.

“There is no skulduggery, nor is there anything untoward, improper or unlawful about the agreement,” said Moodley.

He added that the investor had no qualms about cancelling the agreement on condition that the couple pay the outstanding balance.

The matter will be in court again next week.

noelene.barbeau@inl.co.za