Statute of Limitations for Collecting a Credit Card Debt in the State of Ohio

Identification

A credit card is based upon a contract between the card issuer and the cardholder. This contract is referred to as a credit card agreement. When you use the credit card, you acknowledge and accept the terms and conditions of that agreement. Part of your responsibility under that contract is to compensate the card issuer for any charges made on that card. Failure to honor the terms of this agreement gives the card issuer the right to pursue collection of that debt.

In Ohio, the statute of limitations on credit card debt is six years. This means that the card issuer has this much time to pursue legal action against you for that debt. Depending upon the dollar amount, the card issuer may decide to sue you in civil court and obtain a judgment, which is a judicial decree that specifies how much you owe the creditor. With a judgment, the card issuer may be able to garnish your wages or seize funds in your bank account. A judgment remains on your credit report as a public record for up to seven years.

If you're late on your payments, those late payments will also appear on your credit report for up to seven years. One 30-day late payment can lower your FICO credit score by as much as 110 points, according to Bankrate. Once your credit card debt reaches a certain stage of delinquency, the card issuer may decide to charge it off. This means the lender writes it off as a loss for tax purposes, but the lender may still pursue collection of the charged-off debt. This charge-off will appear on your credit report as well.

If a card issuer obtains a judgment against you today but you don't own any assets, you are what's legally known as judgment-proof; however, judgments have their own statute of limitations under state law. In Ohio, the statute of limitations for judgments is 21 years. The card issuer can legally seek to collect on it from you for 21 years from the date the court issued the judgment. So if you accumulate any assets in the future, the card issuer may be able to come after those assets in order to satisfy the judgment.