The first 48 hours
Two small acts set the whole tone. First, if the money hasn’t moved yet, send it by bank transfer carrying your agreement’s payment reference — that one habit makes the advance provable forever. Second, suggest — once, lightly — that the borrower sets up a standing order. Then consider your admin complete. The completion email holds your signed agreement and certificate; keep it somewhere you’d find it in five years.
The monthly rhythm: nothing
The counterintuitive discipline of family lending is that the lender’s job, done well, is silence. The schedule does the chasing; the standing order does the paying; the relationship stays about everything except money. Checking in “just to see how repayments are going” converts a working plan back into an awkward subject. If the payments arrive, say nothing. That’s the product working.
Your terms, re-read once
Spend two minutes re-reading your own agreement now, while nothing is wrong: what it says about a missed payment, and whether early repayment is allowed. Knowing your terms cold means that if anything ever wobbles, you respond from the document rather than from the mood of the moment — which is precisely what the document is for.
If a payment slips
Don’t panic and don’t pounce. Most “missed” family payments are a cancelled standing order after a bank switch or a genuinely forgotten date — and there is a right order to responding that starts far softer than you’d think: a logistics-first message, then a written renegotiation if money is genuinely tight, and only much later anything formal. A written acknowledgment or part payment also restarts the six-year limitation clock, so patience costs you nothing legally.
The tax minute
If your loan is interest-free, HMRC needs nothing from you — repayments of your own money are not income. If you are charging interest, what you receive is savings income; the Personal Savings Allowance often absorbs modest amounts, and the full picture is a two-minute read. Either way, the loan itself is never reported to anyone — there is no form for lending.