Can I be sued for a debt after it's been handed over to an attorney? Details inside.

[mtrsprt]

Here's the scenario.

Chase bank CC default dating to 2006... Original balance owned 12,600.00

Chase sold the account to Midland.  Midland hired an attorney in my state in 2009 to collect and summons me to court.  I couldn't afford to go to court, so I started a payment plan with the attorney.  After 2.5 years, and a few missed payments here and there, they are summoning me to court again.  The remainding balance is $10,040.00, and they wll only accept a minimum of $3700.00 to cancel the court date for the end of September, and probably start a whopping $200/month payment plan.  The other option would be to accept only a 30% off settlement, leaving me with an astonishing $7400.00 to pay before the court date....

I guess the question is, since this situation still revolves around the original debt, can this attorney still sue me, even though I had made payment arrangements for the debt 2.7 years ago?  The SOL in my state of NH is 3 years from DOLD....

[llecs]

They can sue. Usually they won't proceed if on a payment plan, but a missed payment would likely void out the payment plan. Recheck your state laws. Some states allow for SOL to reset with each payment.

[RobertEG]

Depending upon the provisions of your state statute, making payments may have reset any running of the SOL at that time.

However, SOL statutes are usually based on commencement of legal action.  Since they commenced action back when, I doubt that an SOL defense would apply when that action was withdrawn in favor of a negotiated settlement plan.  Thus, the original date of default would most likely no longer apply to any SOL determination.

Equity would not provide a debtor the ability to avoid a pending legal judgment by paying a bit, then waiting for an alleged SOL to expire, and ceasing compliance with their agreement. 

I doubt that you now have a defensible SOL to rely upon.  I would consult an attorney prior to making any such assumption.