Chapter 11 - Grant Had Used Sophie’s Money to Rescue His Company
The accounting took:
four months.
The amount improperly removed from Sophie’s UTMA account totaled:
$132,840.
Where did it go?
Mostly:
Whitmore Residential Partners.
Grant’s company had invested heavily in a Bedford property called:
Briar Lane.
Luxury renovation.
Expected resale:
$4.9 million.
Then structural problems appeared.
Foundation repairs.
Drainage.
Mold.
Costs exploded.
Grant needed:
cash
to prevent the lender from forcing a sale.
He used:
$73,000
from Sophie’s account first.
Then more for:
contractor payments,
interest reserves,
one company credit-card balance.
Approximately $14,000 ended up covering expenses that had no credible connection to Sophie:
vehicle lease,
business-club dues,
travel.
Grant’s defense was:
“I intended to repay everything with profit.”
That may have been true.
It still did not convert a child’s custodial property into:
his bridge loan.
Under the account rules and applicable law, a custodian had duties to use assets only in ways permitted for:
the minor.
Funding Dad’s failing development deal did not qualify simply because he claimed future profit would help:
Sophie.
The Briar Lane property eventually sold.
At:
a loss.
There would be no magical profit restoring:
everything.
May you like
Grant had to find another way.
---
