Legal Question in Credit and Debt Law in New Jersey

Re: Statue of limitations in nj

The statute of limitations on matters like this is six years. It is legal to try to collect on it after this time. It is even legal for you to be sued after this time. If you are sued you must still answer the complaint and make an affirmative defense that the statute of limitations has expired. If you fail to make this statement in the answer, you might lose the protection of the SOL.

There is no practical difference between buying and owning a debt. The phone company owns the debt as long as the money is payable to it. After some time the phone company might write this off as uncollectible and sell it to a company that specializes in collecting these debts.Once the debt is sold by the phone company to another company, that other company now owns the debt and m ay collect on it.

Keep this in mind. When a creditor like the phone company sells a debt, they sell it for much less than the exact amount. If a company buys a debt at, say, 50% of the true amount, there is room for you to offer a lot less that the true amount. Everything is negotiable at that point. Typically you might be able to pay as little as 70% or less of the true amount depending on the new company's estimate of the time and expense it will take to recover the debt. Those companies wnat to make a profit quickly and if they get 70% of a debt when they only paid 50% of it, they make money. Good luck with this matter.