Six short questions about the money you’re about to hand a relative or friend. The tool weighs your answers, names the arrangement that actually fits, and maps out your next move.
We’ll email the verdict plus a short checklist — useful ammunition for the conversation you’re about to have with the other person.
No repayment expected, and you're genuinely at peace if it's never returned. Cleanest when amounts are small and a dispute is unlikely.
You expect to be repaid, the amount is meaningful, or a divorce, estate, or business issue could surface. Put it in writing.
Repay-if-you-can, forgivable, or part-gift-part-loan. Fits unclear or conditional expectations — and still belongs in writing.
Family money rarely blows up through dishonesty. It blows up because two well-meaning people carry different memories of the same kitchen-table conversation. A dated, signed record closes that gap for good — and it earns its keep again whenever HMRC, a probate solicitor, a divorce court, or a mortgage underwriter asks what that transfer actually was. Even an outright present deserves one signed line saying so.
Published by: RULE8 Inc., the company behind LendRight.
Reviewed for the UK edition: 5 July 2026, LendRight Editorial Team.
Sources: Limitation Act 1980 s.5 (six-year limitation for simple contracts); Consumer Credit Act 1974 ss.140A–C (unfair relationships); Electronic Communications Act 2000 and the Law Commission’s 2019 report on electronic execution; HMRC guidance on savings income; the seven-year rule for potentially exempt transfers (inheritance tax).
What this is: a self-serve documentation tool for everyday personal lending between individuals in England and Wales (Scotland and Northern Ireland aren’t covered yet). Nothing here is legal or tax advice and no solicitor–client relationship arises. Anything secured, commercial, contested, or tangled up with a separation or an estate belongs with a solicitor.
On e-signing: for a simple contract like this, an electronic signature is as good as ink in England and Wales — the Electronic Communications Act 2000 says so, and the Law Commission confirmed it in 2019. LendRight locks each signed agreement into a sealed PDF whose certificate records the signers, the timestamps, and a fingerprint of the exact bytes. Strong evidence, always — though whether any contract holds up ultimately turns on the facts behind it.
Treat everything above as orientation, not advice — legal, tax, financial or otherwise. When your own facts are on the table, the right move is a solicitor (or an accountant, where tax is the question).