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It depends on the last time you paid on it. If the last time you paid on it was more then 4 years then they cannot sue you in Florida. It is 4 years for an open account and 5 years for a contract.

If the debt has passed the SOL then it is time barred. If this is your case then you need to use that as your defense. You should also file a counter-claim in your answer for violations of the fdcpa.

Nether confirm nor deny that the debt is yours as a defense. Then state the SOL has passed and the debt is time barred.

hiya dcd--

ok, first, what state are you in? You mentioned Texas, is that where you live now, or is that where this account originated? Also, if they are suing you, they must by law either file the suit where you currently live, or where the debt originated. If they filed it anywhere other than the county you live in or the county where you lived when the debt originated, then your defense is "improper venue". more on that a bit later.

OK, so you know the SOL for Texas, and for now I will assume that you live in tx. is there anything in the summons and complaint that indicates the age of this debt? most people do not still have records from when the debt first went delinquent, so you will have three options to get that information:

1--off your credit report if the original creditor still has it on there, or if you have an older copy of your credit report printed out that you can submit as evidence.

2--from the original creditor, if by some miracle they still have records available on this account. usually, they will have sold it by now and so they will have no information available for you.

3--the current creditor--the one that's suing you--is supposed to be required to prove their case against you. A lot of times, when they file suit, they send you a complaint with their summons, which will provide a basic explanation of events as they claim them to have happened. sometimes, they are even dumb enough to include a date in there that proves the debt as outside the SOL. Is there any such detail in what you got?

OK, if there is no such info on your credit files or in the summons, then here's how to proceed. They sent you a bunch of statements. The answer is exactly that--an answer to their statements. For example, they may have said:

1. Defendant entered into a credit agreement with _____(original creditor) for a credit card account in 2001.

2. Defendant defaulted on said agreement in July, 2002. The account was left with an outstanding balance of $2,400.00.

3. Plaintiff purchased this account from original creditor in November, 2008 and as such, plaintiff asserts the full right of claim to the total outstanding balance of $2,400.00 plus any applicable interest.

your answers would be the following:

1. Defendant denies the statements made by plaintiff in paragraph 1.

2. Defendant denies the statements made by plaintiff in paragraph 2.

3. Defendant cannot affirm nor deny the statements made by plaintiff in paragraph 3, as defendant has never entered into any agreement with plaintiff and therefore owes plaintiff nothing.

AFFIRMATIVE DEFENSE

Defendant hereby makes motion for immediate dismissal of this case, with prejudice, on the grounds of expired statute of limitations. Plaintiff states in their complaint that this account originally defaulted in July, 2002. Current statute of limitations in Texas for credit card debts is four years. This means that the debt in question would have fallen outside the applicable statute of limitations in July, 2006. As such, plaintiff has no legal recourse in this matter, and the complaint must be dismissed with prejudice.

Under the "affirmative defense" section is where you would list out the 'improper venue' part I mentioned before as well. if that applies, if they filed outside of your county, then let me know and we can put that together for you as well. the bottom line is to make them prove their case, because the law requires them to.

if there is no date listed on their summons/complaint about when the account defaulted, then you would change your individual answers for the first two examples to the following:

1. Defendant does not have sufficient information from plaintiff to be able to affirm or deny the statements made in paragraph 1.

also, guest gave you some bad advice up there. This does not constitute any violation of the FDCPA. None.....the FDCPA has absolutely nothing to do with filing suit on a debt past the SOL....and in reality, they are fully entitled to do so because the sol is an "active-only defense". that means, if you do not use expired SOL as your defense, even if it is proven by the facts of the case that SOL has past, then the court will allow the plaintiff to continue the suit. the judge will not step in for you and dismiss the case on his/her own due to SOL--you must bring it up as your defense for it to apply. you might, and this would be stretching things--you might be able to bring it up as deceptive practices, which IS a violation of the FDCPA, but at that point you would need to show that they intentionally tried to deceive you. if they admit the date in their own paperwork, then there has been no such attempt on their part to deceive you.