Borrowing or Lending

The Community Affiliation Requirements Policy highly recommend not allowing borrowing or swapping on groups. However, the decision is up to individual groups.

Legal liability

In 2016, the potential liability for lending items was researched by Dominic (Bordon, Alten, Petersfield group) and brought to the Development group for discussion - see Lending Liability for details. The Board made a strong recommendation to groups that allow lending to inform their members of the potential liability.

Disadvantages of allowing borrowing

• There are liability issues for lending an item, which could affect the lender.
• It doesn't directly divert something from landfill.
• Borrowed things can be broken, lost, not returned or cause damage, potentially creating more problems for your moderating team to deal with.

Advantages of allowing borrowing

• It could indirectly divert something from landfill, by saving the borrower from having to buy the item, and saves resources.
• It could help build a stronger sense of community.

Tips

• If you decide loans aren't appropriate for your Freegle group, you could refer members to your Café group, if you have one.
• If your Café group allows lending and borrowing, it's advisable to make information about lenders' liability available.
• If you don't allow borrowing, you could let someone say they only need an item for a short time, and ask them to reoffer it on Freegle afterwards.

See also

• Lending Liability
• Sample message: Borrowing, Lending - for rejecting a post
• Specific Circumstances
• How To Deal With