An iou refers to a bill written to the other party when borrowing personal or public cash or goods, that is, an iou. After the money and goods are returned, the bill is revoked or torn by the bill holder. This is a document. Usually used in daily life and business management.
From a legal point of view, an IOU is a written document showing the relationship between creditor's rights and debts, which is generally written and signed by the debtor, indicating that the debtor has owed the creditor the amount indicated on the IOU.
The loan procedures should be complete.
No matter how good the loan relationship is, you should also make an IOU when borrowing money. No IOU is the biggest legal risk. When hearing a loan case, the court shall require the plaintiff to provide a written loan. If there is no written loan, the necessary factual basis shall be provided. If there is no evidence, you have to bear the risk of losing the case. Therefore, when borrowing money, the borrower should take the initiative to write a written loan, and the lender should also remind the other party to write a loan. In case of special circumstances, if it is impossible to make an iou on the spot, a third person shall testify and make up the iou afterwards. When repaying, the repayment person should pay attention to taking back the IOUs or destroying them together. If the lender claims that the loan is lost or damaged, the repayment shall require the lender to issue a receipt, and the repayment shall properly keep the receipt.
Identity problem
receipt for a loan
There are two points worth noting. First of all, the creditor should check the debtor's identity document and let the debtor write the loan in person. If the debtor gives the creditor a pre-written IOU, it does not rule out the possibility that the debtor's signature in the IOU is signed by someone else. When creditors demanded money back, they refused to pay back on the grounds that it was not their own handwriting. If the IOU is printed, it is best to ask the borrower to sign, stamp and fingerprint the borrower's signature column.
Secondly, if the borrower is also the legal representative or person in charge of a company, the creditor must find out whether the debtor is the borrower himself or the company or enterprise he represents. Legally speaking, the legal representative or person in charge can engage in civil acts including payment on behalf of the company or enterprise. If the creditor is not clear about the identity of the debtor, there may be confusion about the identity of the borrower. The direct consequence is that creditors will face mutual prevarication between companies or enterprises and borrowers in future lawsuits, which will bring trouble to the realization of creditor's rights.
Finally, it is worth mentioning that when you lend money to your friend, you'd better leave a copy of his ID card to prepare for possible lawsuits in the future. Therefore, the IOU must be filled out by the debtor himself.
Keep the IOUs properly. Special attention should be paid to prevent the white bars from being stolen, lost and polluted, and the storage place should be safe and reliable, not easy to get wet and not in contact with chemicals. At the same time, it is best to make several copies, and then you can issue copies to the borrowers first to ensure the safety of the original.
Language problem
Don't use polysyllabic and polysemous words to write IOUs. Our country's culture is profound, and many Chinese characters have the phenomenon of multi-tone and multi-interpretation. Once these Chinese characters are used on IOUs, they may cause disputes. For example, "paying back 10,000 yuan" can be understood as "paying back 10,000 yuan" or "owing 10,000 yuan".
Interest problem
The interest rate should conform to the regulations. The interest rate of private lending can be appropriately higher than the bank's interest rate, but it shall not exceed 4 times of the bank's similar loan interest rate (including interest rate). Otherwise, excess interest is not protected.
Lending can be divided into interest-bearing lending and interest-free lending, in which the interest rate of production and operation lending between citizens can be appropriately higher than that of living lending. The Contract Law stipulates: "When the loan contract between natural persons stipulates to pay interest, the loan interest rate shall not violate the relevant provisions of the state on limiting the loan interest rate." At present, the state stipulates that the interest rate of private loans is at most four times that of similar loans of banks. The interest rate of usury is not protected by the state.
Interest may be agreed, but the interest shall not be higher than 4 times of the bank's interest rate for the same period, and the higher court will not support it. If there is no agreement on interest, according to the provisions of the contract law, if there is no agreement or unclear agreement on the payment of interest in the loan contract between natural persons, it shall be regarded as not paying interest. Personal loans between citizens, if there is no agreed interest, are regarded as interest-free. If there is no agreement on the debt, there will be no interest, but if it is not repaid after the repayment date, you can ask to calculate the interest according to the bank interest.
Time problem
In private lending, there are two controversial times: repayment time and writing time.
The repayment time is the time when the creditor and the debtor agree to repay the principal and interest. In reality, people often ignore this agreement or fail to make a clear agreement. The most common expression is repayment after a certain period of time, such as repayment after one year. "One year later" is literally a time period, not a time point. Repayment after two, three or more years can be understood as "repayment after one year". Although there are certain interpretation rules in law, this writing method increases the uncertainty of realizing creditor's rights after all. The uncertainty of repayment time also easily leads to the dispute of limitation of action in practice. Therefore, when agreeing on the repayment time, it is best to specify the year, month and day.
The formation time of IOUs is usually the time when debtors write IOUs. The appointment of this time should also be specific to the year, month and day. In practice, the debtor often writes this date intentionally or unintentionally, or only writes a part of the year, month and day. If the debtor only states June 25th. Although both creditors and debtors know this time when writing IOUs, it is inevitable that there will be disputes over the formation time of IOUs. However, the ambiguity of the formation time of IOUs may bring difficulties to the calculation of the limitation of action. Creditors may have to face the legal problem of whether the IOU exceeds the limitation of action. Although it is possible to determine the formation time of documents through physical evidence identification, it is not absolutely reliable and will increase the cost of the parties.
If there is no agreed repayment period, the borrower can return it at any time, and the lender can demand it at any time.
Dunning problem
Ask for a timely reminder. Unless otherwise provided by law, the limitation of action for requesting protection of civil rights from the people's court shall be two years. After the loan expires, the creditor shall require the debtor to repay the loan in time, and shall not delay the timely payment due to circumstances or other reasons. If the debtor fails to repay for a while, the lender may require the borrower to write a repayment plan or a reminder before the expiration of the limitation of action, so that the limitation of action will be recalculated from the date of conclusion of a new agreement. If the debtor still fails to perform or escapes on schedule, the creditor shall bring a lawsuit to the court within 2 years after the loan expires and collect it according to law, otherwise it will be regarded as giving up the creditor's right and the law will not protect it.
Loan guarantee preparation
This is not a necessary condition. Lenders should pay attention to borrowers' repayment ability. For large or risky loans, the borrower may be required to provide corresponding property mortgage, or find a third person with economic strength as a guarantor. In addition, if the borrower and the borrower renegotiate the repayment period or interest rate without the consent of the guarantor, the guarantor will no longer bear the guarantee responsibility. Both mortgage and guarantee should be signed in writing.
repay the loan
When you pay back the money, you should ask for a loan on the spot. If the other party loses the loan or can't find it for a while, you should ask the other party to write down the receipt on the spot.
enclose herewith
For legal problems, prevention is always the first, and remedy is the second. In addition to writing IOUs, we should also pay attention to the borrower, the date of borrowing, the date of repayment, the borrower's signature, the amount of borrowing, the reason for borrowing, etc. And don't make any mistakes. Besides, you should pay attention to the following five points:
1. It's best to attach the ID numbers of the lender and the borrower in the debit note to avoid unnecessary disputes.
2. When the borrower signs, the lender must see his signature with his own eyes to prevent the borrower from signing with others, and finally refuse to recognize the IOU.
3. The borrower must be the borrower, not the lender, otherwise the borrower will argue that the content is not the original.
4. Try to avoid using different languages. Simple and semantically simple IOUs are the most standard IOUs. Avoid vague language like "A borrows money from B", because it is easy to tell who is the lender and who is the borrower.
The name should be written as IOU, not IOU. Their legal meanings are quite different. IOUs are valid for 20 years and IOUs for 2 years.
Eight traps
(a) deliberately write the wrong name when playing IOUs
Case: Wang and his son borrowed 200,000 yuan from a friend, and made a debit note, agreeing to repay the arrears and interest one year later. Unexpectedly, Wang and his son played a trick when signing the loan, and deliberately wrote it. Zhang Zongxiang didn't pay attention at that time. After the repayment period, Zhang Zongxiang found two people urging for a loan, but they refused to return the loan on the grounds that the name of the loan was not Zhang Zongxiang. In desperation, Wang and his son were brought to court. Although the court supported Zhang's claim, he also paid a huge price for his carelessness in accepting the loan.
(2) I borrowed money, but I never wrote a note.
Case: Wang Xiangzhang borrowed 10000 yuan. When Zhang asked Wang to write the loan, Wang said that he went outside to find a pen and paper to write the loan, left the scene and came back soon. He gave the loan to Zhang, and Zhang saw that the amount of the loan was correct and gave it to Wang. After Zhang asked for money, Wang refused to accept it. Zhang had no choice but to sue the court, and the court entrusted the relevant departments to identify the handwriting and confirmed that the loan was not written by Wang. After verification by the court, Wang admitted that the loan was true and was written by others imitating their own handwriting.
(C) the use of ambiguity
1 case: Li borrowed 100000 yuan from Zhou and issued an IOU to Zhou. A year later, Li returned 5,000 yuan, so he asked Zhou to tear up the original IOU and issued a new IOU for Zhou: "Li borrowed cash from Zhou 100000 yuan, and he still owes 5,000 yuan." The word "return" here can be understood as both "return" and "still owe". According to the relevant provisions of the Civil Procedure Law, "whoever claims and gives evidence", Zhou can't give other evidence to prove that Li still owes him 95,000 yuan, so his rights are not protected.
Case 2: Zhang borrowed 3,000 yuan in cash from Wang and issued a debit note to Wang: "Zhang borrowed 3,000 yuan in cash, August 2005 17". The late king sued the people's court for borrowing money. Zhang argued in court that the loan confirmed that Wang borrowed 3,000 yuan and asked Wang to return 3,000 yuan in cash. It was later confirmed that when Zhang wrote the loan, he deliberately wrote the borrower's name after the cash of 3000 yuan in the blank space behind the word "borrow", which caused the loan to be vague, so as to achieve the purpose of not repaying the loan.
(d) Replace "borrow" with "accept"
Case: Li borrowed 7,000 yuan from Sun, and issued a receipt for Sun: "Receipt, I received 7,000 yuan from Sun today". After Sun sued the court, Li said in his defense that Sun's receipt owed him 7,000 yuan. Because Sun wrote him an iou, he wrote a receipt to Sun. Similarly, "receipt, I received a certain yuan today."
(5) Property is indivisible.
Case: Zheng gave Qian a batch of sesame oil. When issuing the receipt, Zheng wrote: "The gross weight of a sesame oil money owed today is 800 yuan." This practice of stealing "gold" for yuan has made the value worse by 10 times.
(6) Write your own IOUs
Case: Ding borrowed 20,000 yuan from Zhou, and Zhou wrote the loan himself. Seeing that the loan amount was correct, Ding signed the loan note. The following week, he sued for repayment of the loan120,000 yuan with an iou signed by Ding. Ding wants to argue but has nothing to say. Later, it was found that Zhou left an appropriate gap in front of 20000, and Ding added "1" after signing.
(7) Dual-use IOUs
Case: Liu Xiang borrowed 18000 yuan. Issue a receipt: "borrow cash 18000 yuan, Liu". After Liu returned the money, he issued a receipt for Liu on the grounds that the IOUs were lost. The third person, Xu, appealed to Liu to repay the loan 18000 yuan.
(8) Do not write interest on the IOUs.
Case: Li and Sun negotiated a loan of RMB 10000, and the agreed interest rate was 2% per annum. Li wrote on the loan slip: I borrow Sun cash 10000 yuan today. Considering that the two sides are acquaintances, Sun did not insist on writing interest on the IOUs. The grandson sued Li for repayment of principal and interest. After trial, the people's court rejected Sun's claim for interest according to Article 2 1 1 of the Contract Law, "If there is no agreement or unclear agreement on interest payment in the loan contract between natural persons, it shall be deemed that interest will not be paid".
Further reading: How to buy insurance, which is good, and teach you how to avoid these "pits" of insurance.