The statute of limitations that will be applied in any legal action seeking a judgment of a debt will be the statute of the state where the action is being tried.
The FDCPA specifically provides a debt collector the option of bringing action in either the state where the debt ws created, or in the state of current residency of the consumer.
In most cases, for practical reasons, legal action will be brought in the state of currrent residence of the consumer, which will make the SOL of that state the governing SOL at trial. However, many state SOLs include provisions that deal with periods of non-residency, which can incorporate limitations of another state by reference.
SOL are state statutes dealing with the period in which a judgment may be sought on a debt, and have nothing to do with the period after which negative informatino must be excluded from a consumer's credit report, such as lates, a charge-off, or a collection. They are totally independent.
The credit report exclusion date for collections is no later than 7 years plus 180 days from the date of first delinquency on the OC account.
