Can You Be Taken to Court on an Old Credit Card Debt?

If you fail to pay back your credit card debts, you not only face the prospect of a damaged credit score and difficulty in getting a new loan, but your creditors also can sue you to recover the money. Facing a credit card lawsuit without assistance is difficult, so talk to a lawyer if you need legal advice.

Credit Card Debts

Every time you use a credit card, you pay for something by using the creditor's money. The creditor agrees to pay the money and you agree to pay it back at a later time with interest. When you don't pay the money back, the creditor will try to collect it from you. It usually does this first by trying to convince you to pay, but if these efforts don't work, it can also sue you to recover the money.

Lawsuit

A credit card debt is a form of unsecured debt, meaning the creditor did not take any collateral to hold in case you defaulted on the loan. To get its money back, the creditor has to sue you in court. It generally has to do this by filing a lawsuit in the county where you live and notify you that it filed the lawsuit. Once a creditor sues you, you have the right to go to court and try to win the case or try to reach a settlement with the creditor before the court makes a decision.

Procedures

When a creditor sues you to collect on a credit card, it cannot force you to appear in court. If you don't, however, the creditor will likely win a default judgment. This means the court will declare the creditor the winner and grant it the right to collect money from you through methods only available to a judgment winner, including wage garnishments, levies and liens.

Statute of Limitations

When a creditor wants to take you to court, it has a limited time in which it can do so. The amount of time, known as the statute of limitations, differs depending on the state in which you live, the kind of debt and the terms of the debt, but in general requires the creditor to sue you within several years from the date you last paid on the debt. If the creditor sues you after this, you can ask the court to dismiss the case because the statute of limitations has passed.