statute of limitations question....

[ajay97005]

State of Washington has just a two year statute of limitations...

I owe $34,000+ to charged off credit cards.

One creditor just obtained a writ of garnishment against my wages . The two year statute of limitations is almost up for the rest of my creditors and so far they haven't tried to collect.

My question is does the statute of limitations really protect me from judgements and garnishments?

If so.... do I really need to file chapter 7 at all? 5 more years and my credit report would be clean except for 1 paid judgement.....

[HHM]

You need to be absolutly sure the statute of limitations is 2 years. Also, you need to know when the SOL would start to run. Generally, the SOL starts to run from the last activity on the charge account, (either the last purchase or last payment, whichever is later). But your state's laws will dictate the timing specifically.

Generally, using SOL is tricky; BK brings a much greater degree of certainty as to the status of the debt than does trying to run out the SOL. Remember, SOL is only a DEFENSE to a lawsuit to try to collect on the debt. The SOL is not generally an independant defense to other collection efforts. Thus, even if the SOL has expired, they can still attempt to collect the debt from you by non-judicial means. Also, there is a whole side of the debt purchasing industry that buy's debt with expired SOL, and does everything it can to "re-age" the debt so the SOL will not apply.

Generally speaking BK is a much better option than attempting to use SOL because it wraps up all the loose ends.