A loan expressed to be repayable 'on demand' creates an immediate debt with the limitation period running from the date of the advance, not from any subsequent demand. This principle applies in its full rigour in Queensland. An oral agreement to pay a time-barred debt will not revive the debt unless it creates a new and independent obligation superseding the old; a mere promise to pay what is owed under the original loan, even with forbearance and a reduced interest rate, is insufficient. A written loan agreement cannot be recharacterised as an oral guarantee where the document clearly evidences a loan and the party's own evidence confirms it was intended as the true record of the arrangement.
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