The courts had previously protected borrowers as much as possible. Now there is a distinct trend in which even claims barred by SOL can be renewed and energized.
For homeowners facing foreclosure they may be waiving a very powerful defense: statute of limitations.
They are being lured into waiving such defense by solicitations to engage in in some payment plan in which the homeowner acknowledges the debt. This case, approved by 9th Circuit court of Appeals, affirms that holding thus permitting creditors to trick borrowers into renewing claims that didn’t exist in the first place.
The moral of the story is that you should not even respond to such solicitations without consulting an attorney who understands the issues.
see Stimpson v. Midland Credit Mgmt., Inc., 347 F. Supp. 3d 538 (D. Idaho 2018)
See Stimpson Case
So the moral of the story is that the now conservative courts say that even if the statute of limitations has run, a servicer or collection company can offer you a payment plan on the debt. By acknowledging the debt and/or by paying on the debt, you are probably renewing the statute of limitations and removing it as a defense to enforcement.
So the banks are sending solicitations for you to pay off debts that are barred, in whole or in part, by the statute of limitations. If you engage with them, you are probably waiving the defense of the statute of limitations.
So before responding to any service or other debt collector make sure that the statute of limitations has not already run. If it has, an appropriate response would be to tell them that the SOL has run and please don’t contact you again about the debt (if the entire amount is barred by SOL) or to limit their correspondence to claims not barred by SOL.
