Lent something free: you answer even for a fortuitous event

They are Articles 1467 and 1468 of the Civil Code of 2020: the lender’s five obligations and the borrower’s six in the free loan of a good.

Lenders and borrowers under a commodatum contract governed by the Puerto Rico Civil Code.

• From the lender: communicate the defects it knows of, and indemnify the damage caused by those it concealed.Verified against the official source
• From the lender: not ask for the good back until the agreed term or, absent agreement, until it has satisfied the purpose for which it was given.Verified against the official source
• From the borrower: keep and conserve the good with the utmost diligence and indemnify loss or deterioration even by fortuitous event, save the proof the article itself admits.Verified against the official source
• From the borrower: pay the receipt, return and use expenses, with no retention right even for extraordinary conservation expenses.Verified against the official source

• The record of the advance notice of extraordinary conservation expenses: Article 1467(d) conditions reimbursement on that notice or on urgency.
• The record of the defects communicated on receiving the good.
• The record of the report to the true owner, if you learned the good was lost or stolen from them.

1. 1

   Step 1: What the lender owes

   Article 1467(a) and (b): deliver the good at the agreed time and place, and communicate to the borrower the knowledge it has of the defects the good suffers from. The duty to warn reaches what the lender knows.

2. 2

   Step 2: And what it pays if it hid a defect

   Subsection (c): indemnify the damage caused by the defects it concealed from the borrower. Concealing, not merely being unaware: the article measures by concealment.

3. 3

   Step 3: The lender reimburses extraordinary expenses

   Subsection (d): reimburse the extraordinary conservation expenses where the borrower notified them in advance or they are urgent. Two alternative conditions: notify beforehand, or they be urgent.

4. 4

   Step 4: They cannot ask for it back early

   Subsection (e): not ask for the good back until the agreed term or, absent agreement, until the good has satisfied the purpose for which it was given in commodatum. There is an exception in another article of the chapter, with its own guide.

5. 5

   Step 5: The use has a destination

   Article 1468(a): use the good per the agreed destination or, absent agreement, per the one given to analogous things or corresponding to its nature. Using it otherwise has a consequence: it allows asking for it back early.

6. 6

   Step 6: You pay to receive and return it

   Subsection (b): pay the receipt and return expenses. Getting it there and back is on the one receiving the borrowed good.

7. 7

   Step 7: When it must be returned

   Subsection (c): return the good with its fruits at the agreed time or, absent agreement, when the purpose of the commodatum has been satisfied. And a line worth reading before lending with no term: if the duration is not agreed, the lender may ask for the return at any moment.

8. 8

   Step 8: If the good was not the lender’s

   Subsection (d): return the good even if it is not the lender’s property. And where the borrower knows the good was lost or stolen from the true owner, it must report it immediately to that owner so they may claim it judicially within a reasonable time, or else it is liable for the damages it causes.

9. 9

   Step 9: But you do not hand it to the owner on your own

   The same subsection closes it: however, it is not obliged to hand the good to its true owner without the lender’s authorisation or a judicial resolution. Report, yes; hand over, only with permission or an order.

10. 10

    Step 10: You answer even for a fortuitous event

    Subsection (e): keep and conserve the good with the utmost diligence and indemnify any loss or deterioration not arising from its nature or ordinary use, even where it occurred by fortuitous event. It is a harsher liability than the ordinary one, and the Code writes it that way.

11. 11

    Step 11: The one written way out

    The same subsection gives it: except where the borrower proves the good would have suffered the loss or deterioration even in the lender’s hands. The burden of that proof is placed on the borrower.

12. 12

    Step 12: And you may not hold the good

    Subsection (f): pay the expenses made for the use of the good, with no retention right, even by reason of extraordinary conservation expenses. The Code says it expressly, and says it precisely for the case where retaining would be most tempting.

13. 13

    Step 13: The credit exists, the leverage does not

    Worth putting side by side: Article 1467(d) obliges the lender to reimburse those extraordinary expenses, and 1468(f) denies the borrower any retention of the good for that same reason. The Code creates the credit and removes the leverage, and does not say how it is collected. Both texts stand here as written, unharmonised.

14. 14

    Step 14: In deposit it runs the other way

    The previous chapter gives the depositary the right to retain the thing deposited until complete payment of what is owed by reason of the deposit. One chapter grants retention and the next denies it; it is worth knowing which of the two contracts you have.

The contract runs between lender and borrower; the Code names no agency for this chapter. The judicial resolution Article 1468(d) mentions for handing the good to the true owner, and claims over damages or reimbursements, belong to the Court of First Instance.

• Accepting a free loan without knowing you answer even for a fortuitous event.
• Forgetting the one written way out: proving the good would have suffered the same in the lender’s hands.
• Counting on holding the good for the expenses: subsection (f) expressly denies retention.
• Making extraordinary conservation expenses without notifying them in advance, where they were not urgent.
• Using the good for a purpose other than the agreed one or the one its nature calls for.
• Assuming the lender pays the receipt and return expenses.
• Lending with no duration set and expecting not to be asked: with no term, it may be asked for at any moment.
• Handing the good to the true owner on your own, without the lender’s authorisation or a judicial resolution.
• Not reporting immediately to the true owner when you know the good was stolen or lost.
• Staying silent about a defect when lending: the lender indemnifies the damage from defects it concealed.

These are the government pages this guide is based on.

• Poder Judicial de Puerto Rico

  Poder Judicial

  bvirtualogp.pr.gov