Is this debt too old for me to collect?

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Most creditors do not wait very long to attempt to collect the money they are owed. However, if creditors are unable to collect the money themselves, often creditors will simply write it off and forget about it.

Then years later, a creditor decides it wants to sue to collect the money that is owed to it. But did the creditor wait too long?

It depends. For most commercial debts, whether it’s a debt owed for failure to pay for goods or services, failure to pay a loan, or any other type of commercial instrument, a party has six years from the default in payment to start a lawsuit. If suit has not been commenced by that time, the creditor is deemed to have waived its right to commence suit to collect that debt.

However, if a payment has been made at any time, or if the debtor acknowledges the debt in writing, the six-year statute of limitations will commence from the date of the last payment or the written acknowledgment of the debt.

Tags: collections, commercial debts, creditors

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Rosenthal Goldhaber