Collecting debt in Montana: licensing, bonds and statutes of limitations.

“(1) An acknowledgment or the part payment of a debt is sufficient evidence to cause the relevant statute of limitations to begin running anew. ... (3) Part payment is any payment of principal or interest.”

Hughes (static.case.law/mont/370/cases/0499-01.json): 'The jury's finding that Johnny had made payments on the 1989 promissory note would restart the statute of limitations pursuant to § 27-2-409, MCA.' Worden (static.case.law/mont/184/cases/0256-01.json): 'it must be established that the payment, whether it be of principal or interest, was voluntarily made to a clearly identified debt.' The party relying on a payment must prove when it was made; an indorsement on the note is not proof of the date (Wight v. Stevenson, 126 Mont. 377 (1953); Nathan v. Jenkins, 113 Mont. 46 (1942)). Statute is silent on whether a payment made after the period has already run revives the debt; see time_barred_debt.revival_by_payment.

“(2) An acknowledgment must be contained in some writing signed by the party to be charged thereby.”

Oral acknowledgment is insufficient. Brown (static.case.law/mont/263/cases/0184-01.json) applied 27-2-409 to a signed stipulation acknowledging unpaid child-support judgments and held the ten-year period 'commenced to run anew' on each judgment 'not already time-barred'.

27-2-503(1): 'if a claim is substantively based: (a) upon the law of one other state, the limitation period of that state applies'. 27-2-504 imports the other state's tolling and accrual rules. 27-2-505 escape clause: Montana's period applies if the other state's is substantially different and unfair. 27-2-104 routes claims accruing against nonresidents to this part. This is a UCLLA-style conflict rule rather than a classic one-way borrowing statute.

No Montana statute requires a collector to disclose that a debt is time-barred. Montana has no state debt-collection practices act; a site-restricted search of mca.legmt.gov for 'time-barred' / 'statute of limitations' with debt-collector terms returned only 31-3-112 (credit-reporting obsolescence). Federal Reg. F 12 CFR 1006.26 applies. Secondary sources claiming a Montana disclosure duty cite no MCA section.

27-2-409 says part payment causes the period to 'begin running anew' but does not say whether a payment made after expiry revives. The reconciler read every Montana Supreme Court case CourtListener returns for 27-2-409 or part-payment revival. Hughes (2013): payments ran continuously from 1999 to 2008 across the 2005 expiry, so no payment fell on an already-barred note. Brown (1994): applied 27-2-409 only to judgments 'not already time-barred' and expressly noted none was yet barred. Wight (1953): treated post-bar payments as capable of 'reviv[ing] the claim otherwise barred' but turned on the plaintiff's failure to prove when the payments were made. Nathan (1942): the pre-1979 text made a payment 'equivalent to a new promise in writing', dicta on an older statute. No case squarely holds that a post-expiry payment revives a barred consumer debt; the statute's face supports revival, Brown's phrasing cuts the other way.