TX Rental Debt w/CA - SOL ? before DV

[ndolbee]

Hi, first post here.  Will try to keep it short.  My girlfriend has a joint debt with her mother from an apartment lease that was broken some time during 2010.  The situation was that they were both on the lease (everyone over 18 had to be on the lease) and my girlfriend moved out and into her own apartment while her mom continued living in the same place.  Some number of months later, her mother broke the lease, which my girlfriend never knew about.  She didn't find out about it until 1/2013 when she was looking for a new apartment and couldn't pass the credit checks due to the $4k collection account.  The only communications that took place were by phone with the CA (NCC Business Services in Jacksonville, FL) and resulted in her setting up 12 scheduled ACH payments of $80/month paid to NCC to convince a new aparment to sign her to a new lease.

 

Fastforward to today.  Her 12 scheduled payments were made, her lease with the new apartment is done and she is now living with me.  I'd like to help her take care of this.  I was pleased to find out that texas has better consumer protection from creditors than other states.  I have learned a lot on this forum already.  There seems to be some dispute as to what constitutes a reset of the SOL on a debt.  Some parties contend that any partial payment causes a reset.  Others hold that only a written acknowledgement OR payment that brings the account current again will reset the SOL.  Do the 12 payments she made reset the SOL?  I have other questions as well but don't want this to get so long so I will hold off for the moment.  Thanks in advance for any help.

[ndolbee]

I thought I would go ahead and ask a couple more of my questions.

 

1)  If the SOL was reset / re-aged due to the partial payments, is it much harder to settle for a reduced amount, I.E. 60 or 50% since they are able to seek a judgement?

 

2)  My understanding of texas finance code leads me to believe that the OC is subject to the same law as CAs.  Does this mean that I can DV the original creditor with the same power that texas applies to CAs?  When my girlfriend tried to get information from the OC at the beginning of last year when this situation came to light, they (the new management of the property of OC) told her they could not access her paperwork because they were a new management company.

 

3) How critical is it that I cite explicitly from the TFC in my DV letter as far as the CAs or, in particular the OCs obligations relating to their response to my DV request?  Is saying something along the lines of "Pursuant to Texas Finance Code, section 3** I request validation of the alleged debt" sufficient, or do I need to also state the fact that if they do not respond w/in 30 days that they then have 5 days to remove negative trade lines?

 

4)  If my understanding of question 2 above is correct, does it make since to DV both the OC and the CA at the same time?

 

I'll leave it here again for now, thanks once again for any help.

[willingtocope]

Not quite sure I understand.  She made payments, right?  What do you want to clear up?

 

(Remember, there is a difference between "Statute of Limitations" (SOL) and how long it appears on a credit report (RP).  SOL is state by state, but in general, any payment restarts the period.  RP is a federal law and based on "Date of first delinquency" and can only reset if the account is open and brought current).