While many of the state regulations adopted by the California legislature only mirror (or vaguely embellish) the over-riding federal statutes regarding lawful collection and credit card debt relief, the Golden State has indeed come up with several legal shields about which all consumers residing locally should be made aware. For instance, in the most clearly far reaching and potentially advantageous instance, California Statute 337 regulates the duration of time for liabilities to be reclaimed through the courts at just four years.

Although the credit card debt balances would still be tied to the borrower’s name on credit reports – and, have no fear, the original lenders shall still attempt to beguile the account holders into repaying – there’s no earthly reason for the borrowers to comply save some artificially invoked, more than slightly dubious notion of outdated ethics. At times, creditors may even force a court summons hoping the consumers wouldn’t recognize the statute of limitations or themselves forgetting about the parameters of lender rights (more likely given the amount of money for legal representation any civil action inherently demands and the extremely dim odds of California wage garnishment for time barred debts would ever succeed).

While you would have to follow through with the summons and go down to the courthouse to effectively fight the case, all that would be required of any consumer following the legitimate statutory pre-eminence would be to introduce as evidence some documentation of the last time you had either contacted the credit card company about plans for compensation or added to the credit card debt account by initiating a purchase of some kind. According to the California Code of Civil Procedure, the set of rulings which define the parameters of the statute of limitations, the lenders has but forty eight months from the last recorded card activity to enforce reclamation: a significant disparity from similar state regulations.
Although it’s true that every one of the United States features some version of the statute of limitations (generally quite restricted, for the most part), the majority of local jurisdictions have chosen to interpret the starting date of the statute as essentially reset should the borrowers submit a payment, even if it was just a singular nod toward compensation toward the end of the allotted time limit. California, employing a considerably fairer system, ignores all payments made toward the loans in question and concentrates instead upon the final date of borrowing – or, rather, thirty days following such – to render the statute of limitations valid.

The only exception to the aforementioned guidelines, once again, would come into play for consumers who’ve mailed off to the banks holding the credit card debt some written notification of their willingness to comply with a mutually agreed upon remuneration. While the very idea of such an action may sound fundamentally foolish and begging for court injunctions to borrowers dearly hoping against hope to avoid notice until the statute of limitation ensures their protections against garnishment or further reclamation attempts, there are still appreciable reasons to send out these letters. Some Californians worried about their credit rating and fairly confident about their coming ability to achieve full satisfaction of the balances might wish to reassure the lending institutions so that their loans are not designated as charged off for tax purposes, and, for those borrowers trying professional debt settlement as a means by which to avoid bankruptcy, the courts have been known to sometimes view the initial negotiations as sufficient cause to re-age the account balances.

Author's Bio: 

Cole Collins is a freelance writer in the field of personal finance with a concentration in consumer debt relief. For Help with debt please visit http://www.totaldebtrelief.net/