Man successfully sues friends for 'unpaid rent' after Monopoly game

A man has successfully sued his friends for 'unpaid rent' following what started of as a friendly game of Monopoly.

John Matthews, 30, held a games night at his house in Burton-upon-Trent, Staffordshire back in December and invited four of his friends over. One of the games played was the Derby version of Monopoly.

It is alleged that Mr Matthews' obtained a number of properties on the game and built apartment complexes using the red and green board pieces that come with the game.

Matthews complained that when his friends landed on his properties, they refused to pay him any rent in Monopoly money, which the victim says was "out of spite", despite some of the properties he owned being located right next to the "Collect M200 Million As You Pass Go" square, and so they could "clearly afford the rent."

Mr Matthews said in a written statement: "It started out as a friendly game of our local monopoly, but unfortunately things turned dark when my so called 'friends' refused to pay the rent they owed me. There's absolutely no excuse for it. They are cheaters and I'll be damned if I ever play Monopoly with them again."

Mr Matthews took all four of his ex-friends to Burton-upon-Trent County Court, where he won his case and they were ordered to pay him costs and compensation, apologise and to read the rules on Monopoly in full. As a result, they are now reportedly in 'financial dire straits' and one has had to downgrade accommodation to a cardboard box near Burton train station.

This is due to the Board Games Act 2017, which states anyone playing Monopoly enters into a legally binding contract, and therefore must pay rent when it is owed. This is the first reported case of this kind in the country.

One of Mr Matthew's friend's, Dan Smith, defended his actions, saying he didn't know he had to pay rent as "John had been in jail."

He told us: "John picked up a chance card and was thrown in jail for unpaid taxes. I thought if he was in jail, we didn't need to pay rent on the properties he owned. He's coming after us for unpaid rent, but he clearly doesn't pay his own bills, otherwise he wouldn't have ended up in jail. He needs to look at his own morals before attacking others."

According to another one of Mr Matthew's friend's, the game ended when he failed to roll a double six to get out of jail, he immediately saw red and ended up throwing the game board off the kitchen table in extreme anger, with red and green board pieces, chance cards and community chest cards going across the floor, before he stormed off, claiming the game was "stupid anyway".

Matthews later concluded by stating that they would be sticking to non-board games in the future, including Twister and Pass The Parcel. However, he may be playing on his own, as he allegedly no longer has friends and people in the Burton-upon-Trent area regularly cross to the other side of the road when they see him approaching.

Mr Matthew's former friends will be featured on the next series of Channel 5's 'Can't Pay, We'll Take It Away'.

Monopoly Derby Edition

Lynx create new anti-deodorant to increase foul odour

Lynx have created a new anti-deodorant that means people will always, constantly smell of B.O, all day, everyday.

Traditional sprays or roll-ons aim to either mask pongs or block the pores to stop sweaty armpits.

But a new formula has been designed that encourages chemicals in sweat to turn into bad smells.

It was developed by Lynx at their UK headquarters in Leatherhead, Surrey and will be trialed across Europe for the next two years before being made globally available by 2020.

The anti-deodorant can be used immediately after a shower to bring back the musky, sickly B.O. smell which clean hygiene would usually otherwise remove. The target audience is those who wish to be clean, yet also incredibly sticky, which is 95% of the UK population according to market research.

Various flavours of the new product will be available on the shelves including Lynx Hobo, Lynx Musky, Lynx Silage and many other flavours not yet announced. According to an insider at Lynx there will be different flavours to simulate mud, silage, stagnant B.O., dirty oil from the garage and that smell after you've just had sex.

Jason Speakman, CEO of Lynx UK, said: “We are very excited here at Lynx to be adding a variety of new flavours to our portfolio to achieve maximum customer satisfaction.

"We have carried out extensive market research across the country to find out what our customers want and we are happy to be providing the products that the public are demanding.

"We are aiming for our new anti-deodorant products to hit the shelves globally by 2020."

Funny News attempted to contact Dove and Gillette for their views on the new Lynx product, but they could not be reached for comment. Industry analysts believe they may be attempting to rival Lynx with a new anti-deodorant of their own, which is said to be based on human excrement. However no official word has been given on this yet.

Promotional poster for the new Lynx Silage anti-deodorant
Coming soon to a bus stop billboard near you