Do you still have to pay a debt that occured 7 years ago and has been charged off?

Ummmm....this is a hard one......Yes. Not necessarily. Whether or not the debt is valid depends upon the SOL of the state of residency and the type of debt. In some cases the state statute of limitations where the contract was made is applicable. Offhand, I would say no, and make no attempt to pay as that revalidates the dept. Hello, people. This is common sense speaking. Just because a debt is charged off does not mean you don't owe it. If the debt was not valid, you should have disputed it and shown the facts where it wasn't valid. If you do that, it would never make it to charge off status. Creditors usually send a bill stating that if you dispute the validity of the bill you have to put your dispute in writing in a certain amount of time, otherwise they consider the debt valid. If you don't do that, then you basically have told them that the debt is valid. Does anyone here know why creditors charge off debts? So they can clear that fiscal calendar. You still owe the money but it comes off of their active debt list. I have never heard of a statute of limitations on debt, as debt is not criminal. For the information needed the poster can do a search of the state laws where they reside. Simply type "name of state" statute of limitations for debt or something similar. Credit card accounts are considered open accounts, so are medical bills and other debts. Written contracts such as promissory notes will have a different SOL as will judgments that have already been court ordered. For instance the SOL for credit card debt in Florida is 4 years for open account, 5 years for written contracts and 7 years for judgments (renewable). SOL's do not only apply to criminal offenses, and even then there are many criminal offenses which have no SOL, murder being the primary one.