If you live in North Carolina and are worried about old credit card debt, you should be aware that it may be uncollectible under statute of limitations laws. These laws allow you to ask that a lawsuit filed against you by a credit card company be dismissed because of the age of the debt. You should also be aware, however, that just because a debt is outside the statute of limitations, a creditor or bill collector can still attempt to get you to pay it. Plus, the statute of limitations on obtaining a court judgment has doe snot effect credit reporting. Negative debt can still appear on your credit report for seven years.
Time Frame
The statute of limitation on collecting an unpaid debt in North Carolina is three years. This means that if a creditor files a lawsuit more than three years after your credit card debt was "charged off", which usually happens six months after you last made a payment on your credit card account, you can ask the judge to dismiss the lawsuit because the debt is older than the statute of limitations.
Judgments
If the credit card company or the collection agency handling your case, has won a lawsuit against you, the situation becomes far more complicated. Under North Carolina law, the statute of limitations on collecting a judgment is 10 years and to make matters worse for debtors, it can be renewed for another 10 years.
Credit Reporting
Don't confuse the statute of limitations on collecting a debt with the time limit on reporting negative credit information. Most negative credit information can remain on your credit report for seven years, four years longer that North Carolina's three year statute of limitations on debt.
Collection Efforts
Just because a debt is no longer collectible in court, does not mean that a creditor or a third-party collection agency, can't enforce collections. They are within their rights to contact you by mail or phone to attempt and persuade you to pay the debt. However, under the Fair Debt Collections Practices Act, you do have the option of asking a collection agency to cease communications. Send them a letter via certified mail asking them not to contact you again. By federal law, they can only contact you one more time to let you know what they plan to do with your case.
Warning
There are unscrupulous buyers of old debt that may attempt to sue you for a debt that is long past the statute of limitations. If this happens, don't ignore the lawsuit: Doing so can result in a default judgment against you. To prevent this from happening, send a debt collector a letter via certified mail that states that the debt is past the statute of limitations. If they file a lawsuit anyway, you can file a motion to dismiss the case on the grounds that the debt is no longer collectible.
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