Dear Rabbi
One provides an interest free loan to a Jew in need as the Torah requires.
One lives in a different city to the borrower who is prepared to come out in order to obtain the loan. The borrower signs a page stating they’ve taken the loan and will repay it by a certain date. They are sincere about paying back, but on the day they should pay it back, the lender is not available at the exact time the borrower wants to come through to pay the loan back. Because it’s a cash loan (private and not wanting to cause possible tax implications) it must be paid back in cash so that it can be used again as another cash loan to another. Hence the borrower can only pay it back in cash by coming through to the city of the lender.
The borrower now feels released of the obligation of paying back as the lender was not available at the time they wanted to pay it back.
May the lender ever be entitled to ask the borrower to pay this money back again? Is there any way one can broach the subject of payback of this loan without transgressing any Torah prohibition of approaching the borrower for payback?
What is one to do and for how long should one wait after the payback date and having heard nothing from the borrower?
Does one simply give in and say that the borrower is in the right as the lender never has recourse to ask for their money back?
No witnesses were involved (save for the two people giving the loan). Only a page signed by the borrower stating that she took the money and would pay it back by that certain date is available as proof that the loan was issued.
A lesson well learned on the importance of surety!
Thank you.
Eliyahu
Answer:
It is certainly permitted to ask for the money back, and you should surely not forego the loan. The unavailability of the lender at the prescribed time does not exempt the borrower from paying back the loan.
Although there is a prohibition of pressuring a borrower who lacks the means to pay back, in this case the money is ready and available (at least it was), and it is permitted to approach the borrower, and claim back the money.
If the borrower is not forthcoming, it is even permitted to claim the money through Beis Din, and after this by any means available. Although you don’t have witnesses, you have the document, and this ought to suffice.
Good luck!
