I disagree. The SOL is shorter than 7 years for many states. It would be in the creditors best interest to show it deliquent as soon as possible to collect late fees and for corporate tax, p/l reasons. Can you site any example where a company has waited years to declare an account deliquent? More likely they illegally tried to reage the account when it was challenged on the credit report.
No the SOL is shorter in some states for collecting the debt, but I believe for reporting the debt the SOL is the same in all states. tml
It is date of delinquency + 180 days. The opinion letter says that if the charge off occurs before that date, then it begins the date of the charge off. Y'all are complicating it. So you struggle, pay late, miss a few months, make a payment, and then you don't make anymore payments. 6 months goes by, the CCC has to charge it off. The date the account became delinquent, plus 180 days is the start of the 7 year reporting period.
Breeze, I agree with you, but my point using the SOL was that MIKEB said it was 7 years from when the chargeoff/deliquency hit the report. If I understood his theory correctly, an account that was past due 4/98 but never reported to the credit file until 10/00 would have seven years from 10/00. My point in bring up the SOL is that they would not wait until 10/00 to report the account. While they theoritically could report until 10/07 to poision the file, they would have reported it much earlier, most likely 5/98 making the seven years end 5/05. Do you agree?
Yes. They have good reason to report a delinquency early, not late. LOL, sometimes they even report them before they happen
Yes, there are 2 things being talked about here, the SOL and the length of time a delinquency may be reported (in this case, a charge off or collection). The SOL has nothing to do with how long an item can be reported on your credit report; however, if you do make a partial payment on an old debt, it CAN postpone the statute of limitations' taking effect on your collection account or charge-off, ie, restart the SOL clock on this account. If you look at the section of FCRA posted in this thread, and the opinion letter, they clearly state that the latest a charge off or collection could be reported is 180 days after the start of the last delinquency. In the opinion letter, they stated that an account which started going into delinquency in July 1991 could not have the credit report start ticking any later than January 1992, and therefore the collection could not be reported later than January 1999. So, I think that this precedent was set before the new credit reform bill in 1997.
Here is the same FCRA section paraphrased to remove excess info: "(c) Running of reporting period. (1) The 7-year period shall begin, with respect to any delinquent account that is charged to profit and loss upon the expiration of the 180-day period beginning on the date of the commencement of the delinquency which immediately preceded the collection activity, charge to profit and loss, or similar action." Again, people are reading in information that doesn't exist. No where does it dictate WHEN the creditor MUST write off the account. It only stipulates that the reporting period begins 180 days after the last deliquency prior to the collection. If you make your last payment in March, the creditor can decide to writeoff the account in December. The reporting period begins 180 days after the FINAL deliquency prior to the chargeoff. In this case, I would suppose the LAST deliquency would be no sooner than November.
Am I? From FCRA (paraphrased): "upon the expiration of the 180-day period beginning on the date of the commencement of the delinquency which immediately preceded the collection activity" I am not an English teacher, but "date of the commencement of the delinquency which immediately preceded the collection activity" does NOT mean the date of the FIRST deliquency. It means the LAST deliquency prior to the day the creditor decides to chargeoff the account. Because you stop making payments does not mean time stops and 30-day deliquencies cease to stack up. Isn't NanaC a teacher? Do I get an "A" or "F" for comprehension?
You're reading too.... they have up to 180 days. They can do it before then. In your example, if current in march, april payment would have been missed in may. The period could be from may until 180 days later, november.
Mike, that is what I was saying. Sorry if it wasn't clear. Generally, if someone asks me about this one-on-one, I ask, "when did you make your last payment?" Then I calculate.... and, bkev is right, it can be any time during the 180 days if the creditor writes if off prior to that, because that's what the opinion letter says. 180 days or the date charged to p&l. Does that clarify it? I said people were complicating it because, like bkev said, all kinds of other things are being brought up and it clouds the issue. It is not that complicated. However...... for debts that went delinquent prior to the 1997 amended FCRA, the 7 years can be restarted if a payment is made anytime. We are saying the same thing! Just have to pare it down to make it clear.
Well, the staff letter is interpreting it as 180 days from the first date of deliquency prior to the chargeoff. They are looking at "deliquency" as the last duration of the "past dues". For example, you are 30 days late in Jan., 60 days late in Feb, 90 days in Mar., 0 in Apr (you paid it all), 30 again in May, 60 in June, 90 in July, 120 in August. Chargeoff done in Sept. The reporting period according to the staff letter opinion would be 180 days after the May deliquency. (From the way I interpret FCRA, it could be 180 days after August, arguably the "deliquency immediately preceding the chargeoff".) This is fine, and I understand what the staff letter is getting at, but the language in FCRA does not define "deliquency immediately preceding the chargeoff". Is it the first "deliquencies" in the last duration of "past dues", or is it the date of the last deliquency immediately prior to chargeoff (for example the month the account went 120 days late or whatever)? It all depends on the definition of "deliquency immediately preceding the chargeoff". In any event, if Congress "meant" to word the FCRA amendment as the FTC staff letter suggests, I give Congress an "F" for not saying something like this: "The 7 year reporting period begins 180 days after the first 30-day deliquency date that preceded the subsequent chargeoff. An account must be deliquent in excess of 180 consecutive days before writing off the account to profit & loss." (I know this last statement would never be added One last scenario: Going by the FTC staff opinion letter, let's say you paid your account late 30 days every month for 7 years and 2 months. The next 4 months (total of 7 years and 6 months delinquency) you stop paying altogether. In other words, you were behind one month's payment for this whole period upto the last 4 months until you stopped paying. Your credit record would have 30+ every month upto the last four months which would then have 60+, 90+, etc. The creditor decides to writeoff the account since you stopped paying for over 4 months in a row. According to the FTC staff opinion, the "commencement of the deliquency" would be 7 years and 6 months ago, so the 7 year reporting period began 7 years ago (or one month less than 7 years) which would mean the account could only be reported for one month maximum or not at all. Hmm..........think about it..... BTW, before someone says that can't happen, let me say that I remained a month behind for over a year on an installment loan, and yes that is 30+ for every month I remained behind, so it is very unlikely, but technically possible.
Ok, so if an account charges off in 4/98..(and is reported on the CR as being charged off as of 4/98), and several payments are made afterwards, with the last one being on 9/99, does this restart the SOL and/or the reporting date? On my report, the restarted the reporting date (late activity). jmart
Breeze, I must disagree with you. Even if you make a payment on a delinquent account, this DOES NOT restart the clock for reporting on your credit report. The clock MAY be restarted for the SOL if you make a partial payment, but the the 7-yr reporting period.
Kristy, if the debt was incurred and became delinquent under the previous version of the FCRA (prior to 1997) it can be handled the way I said. It may not the the common practice, but it could be handled that way if they wanted to. There are previous threads about this where the lawyers chimed in, if you search for them.
LOL. Don't worry about it to much. Most of the time the creditor will do the right thing, and the 7 year reporting period will start when the creditor reports the chargeoff to the CRA. If your account was charged off on 8/01, it should only remain through 8/08 as far as CRAs report it. My current (only and last) chargeoff is being reported like this.
We are talking about a change in the FCRA which ocurred in 1996 and was implemented in 1997. Unless you have debts where the default and reporting occurred prior to that, it isn't an issue. And it is true, that most of the time it still is not an issue - it could be, but it rarely is.
