S09.E07: Down Like the Titanic

[Dee]

59 minutes ago, msrachelj said:

liam was not in immediate danger.

Out of the two Fiona is/was only LEGALLY bound to care for one.

[msrachelj]

26 minutes ago, Dee said:

Out of the two Fiona is/was only LEGALLY bound to care for one.

you can't convince people who don't care about animals that their live matter. there is legal and there is moral/compassion/loving/human. so never mind. 

[ReganX]

On 23 October 2018 at 3:06 AM, whiporee said:

I hope this means the end of real estate. Because they really, really screwed it up. 

1) It actually takes a long time to default on a loan. Especially a business one. Fiona had plenty of time to try to bring her mortgage into compliance, and to be honest, I'm not sure why that was a concern, even if she defaulted on the investment money. She couldn't have gotten the loan without showing the cash flow to justify it; it would suck to lose 100K (more on that coming up) but it should have had no impact whatsoever on her ability to pay her mortgages. If she's got 282 on a 10-year note at a crazy rate of 10 percent, her monthly nut is about 3700. She's got at least six units at at least $800 though I think she said she was asking 13). Even paying power she should be swimming.  

2) If Max was working as her broker, he had a fiduciary duty not to work against her interests. He became her broker the moment he said he's waive his fees. He didn't say he couldn't advise her, he said he'd waive his fees. He also said he had clients who would be looking for that kind of investment. YOU CAN'T DO WHAT HE ENDED UP DOING, which is use information given to you in a client/broker relationship to gain an advantage over a client. He had a legal responsibility to tell her to get other advice. That kind of thing sends one to jail, not just losing your license. 

3) No partnership agreement ever written gives the general partner the chance to demand immediate payment from an investor or face default, especially one where they are talking about a long process like rezoning.  As a GP, you are ALWAYS trying to get your investors to pay, and it takes a long time, not just a coffee shop conversation. There has to be a vote; Max can't just say he wants 25K and he wants it now. And even if we forget that, there's no way Fiona just loses her investment -- her partnership interest may have been devalued, but you can't just go to your partners and demand more money or we'll just take what you've already put in (trust me, my life would have been a lot easier if you could). And if Max was anything less than forthcoming about the prospects of rezoning and about the possibility -- and expectations -- of additional expense, she'd have an easy case of fraud against him. She'd have a case of fraud even if he did disclose -- enough of one where he'd just give her money back rather than face the legal consequences.

Thank you so much for this breakdown, whiporee, because this part of the storyline was raising red flags for me but I wasn't sure of the real estate law. It's good to know that I wasn't just being paranoid when I thought that there was something off about the situation.

Would I be right in thinking that, when acting in the capacity of Fiona's broker, Max was obliged to give her an honest appraisal of the building's value? 

I ask because, at the start of the season, $550-600k was suggested as an approximate value (albeit by Fiona but the appraiser didn't contradict her) while Max quoted $425k. Would he not be in potential trouble if, having valued it as $425k for his client, he turns around and lists it for a price greatly in excess of that? 

The valuation would have had a huge impact on Fiona's decision. If the building was worth around $575k, and her mortgage was $292k, she would presumably have chosen to retain $283k equity in a building that was rising in value, bringing in an income and providing her with a rent-free home, over a $100k investment, a $25k loan at an unspecified rate of interest, the potential for further added expense, and a risk that the project may fail in the end.

I also don't understand how somebody who holds a limited partnership can be on the hook for extra costs in the first place. Fiona was certainly under the impression that her liability was limited to the $100k she invested. If Max didn't make provision for extra costs when he set the price of the shares, would it not be for him to make up any shortfall?

Also, weren't there at least seventeen partnership slots, at least thirteen of which were sold? The site was on sale for $1.7m, with a minimum $100k buy-in, and there were five slots left before Fiona bought one. Even if the other investors at the meeting (assuming that they really were investors, not friends of Max helping him stage a show for Fiona's benefit) each held multiple shares, wouldn't the additional costs be shared proportionately? Surely, at worst, Fiona would be on the hook to pay a seventeenth of the extra costs, not a fifth. 

There's not a chance in Hell that Max fell for Fiona's budding real estate mogul act when they first met. She turned up with an elementary school aged "intern", for crying out loud! If he has a scam in play, he'd have pegged her as an easy mark. 

I'd feel a lot better about this storyline if Fiona spoke to somebody like Margo or Lip, ideally both of them, about her investment. Lip is cynical enough to consider the possibility of a scam, and Margo has given her good advice in the past.

[Ratherwatchadoc]

Okay, I am kind of a prude, but I still get a kick out of this show. But let me just say that Ford’s punishment was over the top and disturbing. I am a woman writing this, and yes, I get easily embarrassed about being naked in front of people. If Ford was a woman instead of a man, and Debbie was a guy, then this sort of punishment would be considered sexual harassment. Why is it considered funny to expose a man’s backside in public (think of fraternity pranks and pantsing), but for women it is considered a major violation of privacy and would easily put a woman in tears?

Debbie really makes me sick sometimes. She used to be such a sweet little girl. Ford didn’t deserve this sort of punishment and it wasn’t Debbie’s place to even do it. Ford has every right to press charges when the show returns, and I hope he does.

For one thing, he didn’t get to give a full explanation to defend himself when Fiona showed up and saw his “wife”. The impression I got was that they were only legally married while he was with Fiona, but had no interest in each other and were seeking divorce. For all we know, he and his wife could have decided it was over already and that they could see other people. That was what it sounded like to me when Ford was trying to chase after Fiona and give an explanation. In any case, even if he was intentionally living a double life , it didn’t warrant that type of punishment. It instead warranted Fiona never speaking to him again and his “wife “ divorcing him. Beyond that it is nobody else’s business. And why was Fiona let off the hook for everything she did in this episode?

What kind of a person could even laugh at Ford’s punishment? It shows the juvenile depravity of our society. How would you feel if you were in the stockade with your pants down, especially if people who knew you were walking by? I would be near suicidal afterwards. If , when the next season returns, the punishment scene is just forgotten about and Ford DOES NOT press charges , then something is wrong with the writers of the show. 

[WhosThatGirl]

I mean.. I realize I haven’t posted this show in a while and I have been watching and this episode aired months ago but with it coming back... I don’t know how I feel about this episode.

I really am not looking forward to Fiona having a downward spiral which is where it seems like it’s going. Didn’t we do that once before a few seasons ago? Like I get it.. cycles repeat themselves but seriously.. it really is getting stale.

Also yeah  like others watching her just leave that dog.. I think we were supposed to feel sad for Fiona.. like the dog wants to be away from her. Or something. I don’t know. But what I got from that was that “Fiona’s life is falling apart and she doesn’t even have her dog now, aw how sad!” Which.. well, I mean, a dog is a dog. You have to take care of a dog. Sometimes a dog doesn’t always listen or follow the owner. Sorry, symbolic moment it was probably supposed to be or not, a dog is a dog.A living breathing thing.  And Fiona was its owner and just leaving it to fend for itself is a terrible thing a terrible human does. But yet I think we are supposed to feel bad for Fiona here.

And now I’m back to not really liking anyone on the show. Lip might be the only one I like and that’s mainly because he stopped drinking so every now and then I’m fully expecting them to throw him a storyline where he relapses. I like Carl sometimes too. But otherwise it’s kind of like.. really hard to find storylines I’m rooting for.