How to determine the legal nature of the Plaintiff's request for repayment from the Defendant with the Certificate of Arrears?Is it an IOU or an IOU?What is the difference between the legal effects of the two?
Case review
Tang sued Xue to the court with a copy of the "Certificate of Arrears", demanding that Xue repay the loan principal of 300,000 yuan and pay the corresponding interest. The "Certificate of Arrears" states: because the self-bred wheat varieties of Company A Xue were sent to a certain place using the packaging of Company B Tang, resulting in a large area of wheat death, resulting in the loss of farmers, totaling more than 2,900 mu, after multi-party negotiation, the compensation to farmers was 800,000 yuan, because Company A Xue was insufficient at that time, borrowed 300,000 yuan from Tang (Tang entrusted Zhang to directly pay to the farmers who suffered losses), Zhang entered 280,000 yuan, and Tang entered 20,000 yuan, totaling 300,000 yuan. Lender: Tang, borrower on April 25, 2019, the debtor's signature has the word "Xue", and there is a stamp on the word. Tang submitted a bank statement of Zhang, an outsider to the case, to confirm the transfer of Tang's spouse Zhang.
Xue argued that the "Certificate of Arrears" was printed by Tang after he signed and stamped on a blank piece of paper, and that the nature of the "Certificate of Arrears" was an IOU, which has now exceeded the statute of limitations.
The focus of the controversy
The focus of the dispute in this case is the formation process and determination of the legal nature of the Certificate of Arrears.
Heard by the courts
After trial, the Huaiyin Court held that the statements of the plaintiff Tang and the defendant Xue were inconsistent with the formation process of the arrears certificate. The plaintiff claimed that the defendant had printed it out and delivered it to the plaintiff, but the plaintiff was not at ease and asked the defendant to stamp the proof of arrearsThe defendant argued that he had signed the paper and pressed his fingerprint in advance, and that the paper was blank and had no content when he pressed his fingerprint. In response to the dispute between the parties, this court held that in the first trial, the defendant stated that he signed and put his fingerprint on two blank pieces of paper, and did not put his fingerprint on the paper on which his name was printed. At the second trial, the defendant claimed that the act of putting his fingerprint on the paper with his name printed was drunk, but did not provide other evidence to support it. Since the defendant's two statements were inconsistent and no evidence was provided to substantiate them, this court accepted plaintiff Tang's statement in light of the actual circumstances of the case and according to the rule of probative force.
With regard to the legal nature and statute of limitations of the Certificate of Arrears, the plaintiff Tang asserted that the nature of the Certificate of Arrears was actually an IOU, and the parties had not agreed on a repayment date, and the plaintiff Tang could request the defendant Xue to repay it at any time, and the statute of limitations should be calculated from the date on which the plaintiff Tang claimed his rightsDefendant Xue asserted that the nature of the proof of arrears was an IOU, and the statute of limitations should be calculated from the date on which the certificate of arrears was issued. With regard to the above-mentioned dispute between the parties, this court held that, judging from the time when the certificate of arrears was issued, it was issued by the two parties to compensate for the loss of seeds of others, so as to prove the existence of a loan relationship between the two parties. In addition, according to the words "lender" and "borrowing" in the "Certificate of Arrears" issued by the defendant Xue to the plaintiff Tang, the legal nature of the "certificate of arrears" should be determined to be an IOU, so as to prove that there is a loan relationship between the two parties, and the two parties have not agreed on the repayment period, and the plaintiff Tang can claim rights against the defendant Xue at any time. To sum up, the plaintiff Tang's request for the defendant Xue to pay the arrears of 300,000 yuan is legal and well-founded, and this court supports it.
In the end, the Huaiyin Court ruled that Xue should repay Tang the principal of the loan of 300,000 yuan and the interest on the loan (based on 300,000 yuan, from February 3, 2023 to the date of actual payment, the interest calculated according to the market loan ** interest rate for the same period announced by the Interbank Funding Center). After the judgment was rendered, Xue appealed to the Jinan Intermediate People's Court, and the court of second instance ruled that the appeal was rejected and the original judgment was upheld.
What the judge said
In judicial practice, the difference between an IOU and an IOU is very different. First, in terms of the causes, the IOU is formed based on specific borrowing facts, and the lending relationship between the parties is clarifiedIOUs can be based on a variety of facts, such as loans, sales, damages, etc., reflecting the creditor-debtor relationship. Second, in terms of the statute of limitations, if the repayment period is agreed, the statute of limitations for both is three years from the day after the expiration of the repayment period. If the repayment period is not agreed, the lender may claim repayment from the borrower at any time, and the statute of limitations for litigation shall reach a maximum of 20 years, and the court shall not protect it if it exceeds 20 years from the date on which the rights are infringed;On the other hand, the statute of limitations for IOUs without an agreed repayment period is three years. Of course, if the parties do not defend the statute of limitations, the court may not take the initiative to make a judgment based on the expiration of the statute of limitations. In addition, the two are also different in terms of content, probative force, burden of proof, etc. In this case, the defendant objected to the formation process of the proof of arrears, but its statement was inconsistent and could not provide corresponding evidence to substantiate it, and the court accepted the proof of arrears involved in the case. As for the determination of the nature of the money involved in the case, the certificate of arrears clearly printed the contents of "borrowing" and "lender: Tang", etc., and the court determined that the legal nature of the proof of arrears was an IOU, and the two parties did not agree on the repayment period, the plaintiff could claim rights against the defendant at any time, and the plaintiff demanded that the defendant pay the arrears of 300,000 yuan and interest, which was legal and justified.
Links to legal provisions
Civil Code of the People's Republic of China
Article 577.
If one of the parties fails to perform its contractual obligations or its performance does not conform to the agreement, it shall bear the liability for breach of contract such as continuing to perform, taking remedial measures or compensating for losses.
*: People's Court of Huaiyin District, Jinan City.
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