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Asked · 2026-08-11
Written by the editorial desk as general legal information. It is not an answer about anybody's particular situation, including the asker's.
An ordinary debt is a civil obligation. Failing to pay a debt is not, by itself, a criminal offence, and a lender's remedy for non-payment is a civil one — the agreement, and where necessary the courts.
That is a different question from whether an allegation of fraud has been made, which is a criminal allegation and is treated as one. If you are being told that non-payment alone will result in arrest, that is worth taking to a lawyer rather than acting on.
Separately, threats and contacting a borrower's friends or family about their debt raise issues of their own, including under data protection law.
The instruments this touches, described in general terms. We do not reproduce statutory wording — read the official text before relying on any of it.
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