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

“Whenever any payment of principal or interest is made after it has become due, upon an existing contract, whether it is a bill of exchange, promissory note, bond, or other evidence of indebtedness, the limitation shall commence from the time the last payment was made.”

“No acknowledgment or promise shall be sufficient evidence of a new or continuing contract, whereby to take the case out of the operation of this chapter, unless the same is contained in some writing, signed by the party to be charged thereby; but this section shall not alter the effect of any payment of principal or interest.”

Neither a shorter-of nor a longer-of rule: Oregon applies the limitation period of whichever state's law the claim is 'substantively based' on. ORS 12.430(1): 'Except as provided by ORS 12.450, if a claim is substantively based: (a) Upon the law of one other state, the limitation period of that state applies'; 12.430(2): 'The limitation period of this state applies to all other claims.' ORS 12.440 imports that state's tolling and accrual rules. ORS 12.450: Oregon's period applies instead if the foreign period 'is substantially different from the limitation period of this state and has not afforded a fair opportunity to sue upon, or imposes an unfair burden in defending against the claim.' Portfolio Recovery v. Sanders, 366 Or 355 (2020): where the parties made no effective choice of law and identified no conflict of consequence in substantive law, Oregon law applied under ORS 12.430(2), so Oregon's six-year period governed a Virginia-chartered bank's card debt rather than Virginia's three-year period. The site copy should not label this statute shorter-of or longer-of.

“Files a legal action to collect or files a legal action to attempt to collect a debt if the debt collector knows, or after exercising reasonable diligence would know, that an applicable statute of limitations bars the collection or the collection attempt.”

Oregon's Unlawful Debt Collection Practices Act makes filing suit on a time-barred debt an unlawful collection practice (646.639(2)(r) for all debt collectors; 646.639(4)(a) for debt buyers), and debt buyers must keep procedures for withdrawing time-barred suits (ORS 646A debt-buyer duties, referencing ORS 12.080). Neither pass found any ORS provision requiring a written time-barred-debt disclosure in non-litigation communications; federal Reg F, 12 CFR 1006.26, is the only disclosure rule. Status 'unenforceable' rather than extinguished: ORS 12.230/12.240 and Culver contemplate the debt continuing and being revived. Private actions under ORS 646.641 carry a 3-year period since SB 1595 (Or. Laws 2024 ch. 100).

Culver (read in full by the reconciler on the CAP archive) holds that ORS 12.240 'has been construed to apply only to payments made before the statute of limitations has completely run' (26 Or App at 812). A payment after the period has run operates only under ORS 12.230 as evidence of a new promise: 'a payment made on a debt after the statute of limitations has run might revive the legal obligation' (citing Marshall and Eastman), but per Harding v. Grim 'a payment of a part of the debt is a sufficient acknowledgment to authorize the presumption of a promise to pay the remainder' only where 'it must appear to have been made and intended as an unqualified part payment of the debt' with an unqualified acknowledgment that more is due. On the facts the court refused revival because the 1971 payment was intended primarily as a gift to the creditor's grandchildren, not as an acknowledged part payment. So a post-expiration payment revives only where the creditor proves the debtor intended it as an unqualified part payment of the debt; an equivocal or conditional payment does not. No writing is needed for a payment (ORS 12.230 last clause); a bare acknowledgment or promise must be in a signed writing.