past debts

[mhall]

At the time of divorce, which was 10 years ago, court order listed debts that each party was to pay. This was spelled out very clearly in the court order.
I paid the ones assigned to me. As time passed I began to get bills for the one on x's list.  I would send copy of court order with explanation. This would be repeated over time. One debtor was very insistant, turning over to bill collector. I sent copy of court order. Debt was sold to yet another collector, this has happened 3 or 4 times. At one point my attorney sent letter stating all matters  should be sent to him that he considered what was happening was harressment. Nothing happened for a few years. Now comes another letter, x has not paid the bill and  the account has been sold once again. And they are threating once again. What to do? I cannot afford to get an attorney involved again.
Thanks in advance.

[socrateaser]

The original creditor is not a party to your divorce. Although your judgment may have distributed debts between you and your spouse, both of you remain secondarily liable for any debt that you originally incurred in your own name or jointly.

Based on your facts, however, you maybe safe from suit on some or all of these debts becase the statute of limitations MAY have already passed. I would need lots of specifics about each of your debts in order to determine this.

Your first move is to (1) write to the collection agency and demand that they provide you with proof of the debt (frequently, they cannot or will not do this, and you will never hear from them again); (2) get a copy of your credit report from Experian, Equifax and Transunion (collective known as the CRAs) and see if you have been negatively reported.

Depending upon the specific debt, you may be able to get the CRAs to remove the entry as incorrect or unverifiable.

[mhall]

Thank you for the response.
The debt in queston is a telephone bill. I did not know there was a statute of limitations on debt. Does this one apply?
Over the years I have received bills that X was to pay, this one included, and have sent copy of court order, this is the only one that keeps popping up.
Again, thank you.

[socrateaser]

A debt is a personal obligation to pay for goods or services provided by another. It is governed by contract law. For example, Whimpy says to Popeye, "I will gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today." If Popeye buys Whimpy the hamburger, then via his act, Popeye has agreed to Whimpy's offer, a contract is formed, and Whimpy owes a debt to pay for the hamburger purchased for him by the following Tuesday.

So it is with any contract/debt regardless of the complexity or legal gobbledygook.

Every State has a statute of limitations on the time after a person breaches a contract, which in your case would be the date on which the telephone bill was due and payable. Absent some subsequent agreement between you and the telephone company or collection agency affirming that you would pay the debt, the phone company has from that aforementioned date until the last day of the applicable statute of limitation time period to file a lawsuit to collect. If it fails to do so, then it is SOL (!@#$ outta luck), because the court will dismiss any action wherein the Defendant (that's you) pleads that the statute of limitations has expired.

Different States have different applicable limits on contracts to pay debts -- in CA it's 4 years, in OR, it's 6 years. I don't know where you live, or more importantly, where you lived when the contract for telephone was first entered into, i.e., the date on which you called the phone company and said, "Hook me up."

Whatever State you lived in on the date that act occured, is the State whose statute of limitations applies to your debt. If the date from the date that the bill was due until today, is greater than the statute of limitations for the State in question, then you are, well...off the hook, as it were, and you can tell the collection agency to either sue you, or leave you alone.

If after that, they don't sue you, and they continue to bug you, then you can sue them under the Federal Fair Credit Collection Act, and you can get up to $1,000 plus attorney fees.

If they DO sue you, then your response to the court would be, "Move for dismissal with prejudice on grounds that statute of limitations has expired (see original telephone bill, Exhibit #1, attached)."

...and the court will dismiss the action, and that will be the end of it.

So ends the lesson for today.

[mhall]

And a good lesson it was!!! Thank you so much.
The state involved is Alabama. I no longer live there but X does, matter of fact the bill in question was for a phone X had installed,  her mother signed to have it installed since we had never had a phone in AL.
Now I will try and find the statute of limitations on a debt in Al.
Again, thank you.