"I would also recommend noting in the receipt that the funds were received. Because a loan agreement does not begin to operate from the moment of signing the written document—whether it is a loan agreement or a receipt—but precisely from the moment the funds are transferred. Disputes very often arise. There is an agreement, there is a receipt, and one of the parties comes and says: I didn't receive the money. How to prove that? You have no right to rely on testimony," Olga Stanova explained.

Is it necessary to have a receipt notarized?

You will not have a receipt notarized, because this is not provided for by legislation, the attorney warned.

"If you go to a notary and say: let's notarize the receipt, in this case the notary will offer you to conclude a loan agreement that will have all the essential conditions and comply with the legislation. Therefore, if you take on obligations under a receipt, do not hope that the notary will put their signatures and seal there," the specialist explained.

Does correspondence in messengers have legal force?

Let's consider the situation: a friend asked you in a messenger for a loan of 500 rubles and did not return the money. Will this correspondence have legal force and can it be presented as evidence in court?

"Judicial practice proceeds from the fact that any evidence not prohibited by law is admissible. In this case, the correspondence can be evidence of the arising legal relations. And very often we, as attorneys, provide such correspondence in the form of screenshots and, in the court session, show the phone that this correspondence actually took place in real life. Judges very often want to verify, if there is no loan agreement itself," the attorney explained.

According to her, the question will also be how the other party reacts. If they tell you: I gave you the money. What are you going to do with that?

How to correctly return money according to a receipt?

The attorney recommends: if you are returning money, take an analogous receipt stating that you have returned the funds in such-and-such an amount. If a receipt was prepared beforehand, make a note on it that the funds have been returned.

"Sometimes simply using some electronic means of transferring funds, for example, from card to card, is used. This is ironclad proof that you have returned the funds," Olga Stanova concluded.