A family member won't repay a loan: what are my options?

It's one of the most quietly stressful situations there is. You lent money to someone you love — a sibling, a parent, an adult child, a cousin — and now the repayments have stopped, the subject has gone awkward, and you're lying awake wondering whether you've lost both the money and the relationship. The good news is you have more options than it feels like right now, and the law is on the side of someone who genuinely lent money. The hard part is almost always the same one question: can you prove it was a loan? This guide walks through your real options, what counts as proof when there's no formal contract, and how to make sure it never happens to you again.

Can you sue a family member who won't repay?

Yes. A loan is a debt, and being family doesn't make it uncollectible — relatives can sue and be sued like anyone else. For most family loans the venue is Small Claims Court, which is designed to be affordable and navigable without a lawyer. The amount you can claim there depends on your province (for example, Ontario's limit is $50,000; Alberta's is $100,000), and larger amounts go to the superior court.

But here's the honest reframe most people need: the barrier is rarely permission to sue. It's proof. A judge doesn't decide these cases on who's more sympathetic — they decide on whether the evidence shows, on a balance of probabilities, that this money was advanced as a loan to be repaid. So before anything else, your real task is to assemble your proof.

What if there was no written agreement?

Take a breath: a missing contract is a weakness, not a dead end. A written loan agreement is the gold standard because it settles the terms in advance — but Canadian courts routinely decide loan disputes that never had one, by weighing everything else available. The question simply shifts from "what does the contract say?" to "what does the surrounding evidence show the two of you intended?"

That means the case becomes about assembling a convincing picture from the pieces you do have. And most people have more pieces than they realize.

What actually counts as proof

Here's how the common forms of evidence really hold up:

Is a text message enough?

Texts can be genuinely powerful — but usually as part of the picture, not the whole case. The magic words are an acknowledgement: a message where the borrower says something like "I'll pay you back when I get paid" or "sorry I still owe you the $3,000." That confirms the money was a loan, which is the exact point the borrower will later dispute by calling it a gift. A text chain that only shows the money being sent, with no mention of repayment, is far weaker. Save the whole thread, don't delete anything, and keep it in a form you can show is authentic.

Can you use e-transfers as proof?

Yes — e-transfer and bank records are excellent for one specific thing: proving that a particular sum left your account and reached theirs on a particular date. What they don't do by themselves is prove the money was a loan rather than a gift, since a transfer looks the same either way. That's why they're strongest combined with messages or a record of repayments. Tip: a memo line on the transfer ("loan — to repay") is a small thing that can matter a lot later.

What if the loan was only verbal?

A purely verbal loan is still legally binding in Canada — a spoken agreement to repay is a real contract. The difficulty is purely evidentiary: with nothing written, a court is left weighing your word against theirs, and a borrower can simply assert it was a gift. This is exactly where the supporting evidence above does its heavy lifting, and why even a short message sent after the fact — "just confirming the $5,000 I lent you last week" — can quietly strengthen a verbal loan.

Your options, from gentlest to firmest

You don't have to leap straight to court. In practice there's a ladder, and most disputes resolve before the top rung:

1. A calm, clear conversation or message. Sometimes repayment stalled for a reason you don't know. A direct, unembarrassed "can we sort out a plan for the $4,000?" — in writing — both gives them a chance and, usefully, creates a record.
2. A written demand. If that goes nowhere, a firm written demand for repayment by a specific date signals you're serious. It's also a step courts like to see you've taken.
3. Small Claims Court. If the amount is within your province's limit, this is the accessible route — you file a claim, present your evidence, and a judge decides. You generally don't need a lawyer.
4. Superior court. For amounts above the small-claims limit, the claim goes to the superior court — more formal and more costly, which is its own argument for documenting loans up front.

For the mechanics of the court route, our province guides walk through it — for example, suing for an unpaid loan in Ontario, and the same for Alberta and British Columbia.

A note on the relationship

Approaching this with documentation instead of emotion does double duty: it strengthens any claim, and it keeps the conversation about facts rather than feelings, which is sometimes what makes repayment possible at all. Many family loans get repaid the moment the borrower realizes there's a clear, calm record — no court required.

How to make sure this never happens again

Every hard lesson in this article points the same direction: the disputes that drag through courts are almost always the ones where nothing was written down. The fix is simple and takes minutes. Before any future loan to family or friends, put it in writing — the amount, the date, the repayment terms, and an explicit line that it's a loan, not a gift — and have both people sign. It can still be warm and flexible (interest-free, "pay when you can," even forgivable). What it can't be is invisible.

That single habit removes the one weakness behind nearly every story above. And it protects the relationship as much as the money, because nobody is left guessing what was meant.