Borrowing or Lending

The Basic Requirements of a Freegle Group highly recommend not allowing borrowing or swapping on groups. However, the decision is up to you.

Advantages of allowing:

• It does indirectly divert something from landfill by preventing the borrower from having to purchase the item and saves resources
• It creates a better sense of community

Disadvantages of allowing:

• There are liability issues for lending an item, which could affect not only the lender but the group as well
• It doesn’t directly divert something from landfill
• Borrowed things can be broken, lost or not returned, potentially leading to more problems for your moderating team to get involved in

Tips:

• If you decide loans are not appropriate for your Freegle group you can refer members to your Café group if you have one.
• If you don't allow borrowing you could allow someone to say they only need it for a short time and then they will offer it another person on Freegle.

Legal Liability:

In 2016, the potential of liability for lending items was researced by Dominic (Bordon, Alten, Petersfield group) was brought to the attention of the Development group. See Lending Liability for details of this.

Links:

• sample message : Borrowing, Lending you could use to reject a post
• Specific Circumstances
• How To Deal With