Statute of limitations

A statute of limitations is the time a plaintiff has to file a lawsuit. For consumer debt, that time is set by state law and depends on the kind of debt and, often, on the state whose law applies. When the period has run, the collector’s ability to win a suit is what has expired, if the dates were measured correctly. The debt does not evaporate. A collector may still request payment. A payment or a written acknowledgement can restart or extend the period in some states.

That clock is not 15 U.S.C. §1681c. The Fair Credit Reporting Act’s seven-year period limits how long most negative information may appear in a credit file, measured from the delinquency. A file can stop showing a collection while a lawsuit is still timely, or a lawsuit can be time-barred while the item is still inside the reporting window. Labeling either clock “STATUTE: 7YRS” collapses them.

This definition does not list fifty state periods. Those numbers change, and a wrong table is worse than a pointer. Read the statute of the state that applies, and the CFPB’s general explanation of debt limitation periods, before you pay or promise to pay an old balance in order to “reset” something.