So let’s cover time-barred debts a little bit more — they come up a lot, and if you’re trying to get targeted about how you’re going to repay your debts, they matter a great deal. You see, if you waste all of your money paying time barred debts, you have less money to actually pay the debts that are really going to count. So it’s just a matter of making sure that youíre focusing on the bigger picture here. Time barred debts aren’t your friend, they’re usually too old to count, and if the debt collector is trying to bug you about them — chances are they know that it’s a time barred debt.

You have to know your rights. Even though the time barred debt means that the debt collection agency cannot take you to court, they can still bring it up to you. They can still try to get you to pay it. As long as they don’t sue or threaten to sue you over the debt, they are in the clear. The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act covers how debt collectors have to behave. So you will actually find that debt collectors will choose their words carefully.

If the debt collector does indeed sue you to collect a time-barred debt, you can have the suit dismissed on its face by letting the court or judge know that it’s a time-barred debt.

It’s important to know that you can refuse to pay. You just need to make sure that you are looking up the statute of limitations for your state. Yet it can be even more complicated than that. If you have moved a few times since you have entered into these agreements, you might need to make sure that you’re looking up each state that you lived in at the time these agreements were signed. In addition, you will also want to look at the original agreement and see what state actually governs all legal practices. It might be the state the company itself is headquartered it. Sometimes companies like California, North Dakota, South Dakota, or even Delaware. But you will need to make sure that you do the research yourself, especially if you are determined not to pay.

The statute of limitations for a state could range between 3 and 10 years.

If an account has been on your credit report more than seven years, it cannot appear on your credit report. There are certain exceptions to this, but overall, you can get these accounts removed from your report. After all, it makes sense — the company is putting the negative information on your account for you to pay them. If they no longer have any legal right to collect the debt, then there’s no need for any “reminder” information to go there.