to go off topic for a minute..
what if a congregation owned its hall outright--never had a mortgage or loan from the watchtower---and the body of elders decided to sell up. are they legally required to hand over the dosh to the watchtower ?
ExElder Friend Had To Go To His Former Kingdom Hall and this what he told me!
by minimus 39 Replies latest jw friends
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pistolpete
Irwin Zalkin might pay a hefty amount for all that information that he might be able to use in the coming lawsuit against Watchtower.
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Biahi
I believe minimus, I wonder if their situation is more dire than we realize. They are ready to just drop everything and run away. They know the jig is up.
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Magnum
I wonder if their situation is more dire than we realize. They are ready to just drop everything and run away.
Interesting. They're probably inundated with stuff against them - lawsuits, potential lawsuits, disgruntled old-timers asking them tough questions, financial issues, etc. We might only be aware of a small sample of what they face. Maybe they do see the writing on the wall and are making preparations for some kind of exit strategy. Remember what was said during that recent broadcast about the lights being turned off, no more broadcasting, etc.?
I don't know, but it's interesting to watch. If they are planning to drop everything and run away, I wonder why they're working on new projects (Aren't they building new studios or something like that?).
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Beth Sarim
stan livedeath;
to go off topic for a minute..
""what if a congregation owned its hall outright--never had a mortgage or loan from the watchtower---and the body of elders decided to sell up. are they legally required to hand over the dosh to the watchtower ?""
Um, unfortunately, yes.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but something happened in California 8 or 9 years back. The congregation elders 'balked' at the CO's directives, pissed the CO off terribly and I believe the elders had their 'privileges' revoked.
I'll stand to be corrected, but it was a similar situation.
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GrreatTeacher
Menlo Park?
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Beth Sarim
Menlo Park!
Yes. That's it. A henchman CO started throwing his weight around, wanted this, this, this and that done. A few Eldubs refused and the CO stripped them of their privileges. That's how I understood it.
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GrreatTeacher
Wealth of information if you type Menlo Park into the search function on this site. Just rereading some of it.
Multimillion dollar property owned by the local congregation and the CO wanted it sold. Elders would not agree since the congregation held the title. CO had them all removed and disfellowshipped and the congregation was disbanded.
Yadda, yadda, yadda, more things happened that I need to read up on again. It ended up in court.
Very ugly and a stain on Watchtower's reputation.
EDIT: After doing some rereading I found that the property became valuable because it became surrounded by Silicon Valley. The location is now near to Facebook's corporate headquarters. The hall was owned free and clear by the local congregation. There were allegations that one of the local elder's names was forged and the bank account was cleared by a JW insider at the bank. The organization was accused of racketeering.
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nowwhat?
I apologize for doubting your story. Maybe the elders were so pissed that their kingdom hall got sold, they purposely left the files and everything behind.
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Sea Breeze
It appears that Jehovah is answering prayers and speeding up the work in his own time. The waters are drying up for the Watchtower.