Acknowledged after expiry, two years left
A time-barred debt has not gone anywhere, and one sheet signed by the debtor can put the creditor back in a position to sue. Whether that brings ten years or two turns on the date of signing, not the wording.
Phenhnung Thabthimthong
Partner · YACT Association
Published 7 August 2026 · Updated 14 August 2026
Expiry does not make the debt disappear
Section 193/10 of the Civil and Commercial Code gives the debtor of a time-barred claim the right to refuse performance — a right to refuse, not an erasure of the debt. Section 193/29 adds that where limitation is not raised as a defence the court may not dismiss on that ground, so a defendant who omits it loses a case that ought to have been won. And under the first paragraph of section 193/28, what is paid on a time-barred claim cannot be recovered, even where the payer did not know it had expired.
The same document, ten years or two
Judgment 4507/2547 holds that a claim within the meaning of section 193/35 arises only where the debt existed, then became time-barred, and was acknowledged in writing only afterwards. The debt sued on carried a ten-year period and had not expired when the debtor acknowledged it, so section 193/35 and its two years did not apply: the period was ten years from the acknowledgment under sections 193/14 and 193/15. Signing while the claim is alive starts the original period again in full.
Signed after expiry, the new period is the shorter one
Judgment 12264/2555 is the other side of the same question. The last parts had been delivered in October 2540 with no time for payment agreed, so the price was due at once. The acknowledgment was drawn up on 2 July 2547, by which time the claim had expired, and the Court treated it as an acknowledgment of liability in writing, on which the creditor had to sue within two years of its date under section 193/35 with the second paragraph of section 193/28. This is where the position is most often assumed to be the reverse: a dead debt gives the creditor less time than a live one.
What creditors count as stopping time, and the law does not
Judgment 4862/2543 holds both halves in one case. A part payment of outstanding tax in March 2529 interrupted time that day, but by November 2540 more than ten years had run and that part of the claim had expired. The Court stressed that time is interrupted only by an event within section 193/14, and that seizure of property under the Revenue Code is not one. What kept the claim alive was the paper signed on 11 November 2540, which opened a fresh two years under section 193/35. The first paragraph of section 193/17 works the same way: where the action that interrupted time is dismissed, withdrawn or abandoned, time is deemed never to have been interrupted. In judgment 4372/2542 the creditor filed in January 2539 and withdrew, so its application to prove the debt in June 2539 fell outside the two years from an acknowledgment of 5 August 2536.
AUTHORITY
The judgments this rests on
Supreme Court judgment 4507/2547
Section 193/35 applies only where the claim expired first and was acknowledged afterwards; the debt not yet being time-barred when acknowledged in writing, the period was ten years under sections 193/14 and 193/15, not two.
Supreme Court judgment 12264/2555
An acknowledgment drawn up after the claim had expired is an acknowledgment of liability in writing, on which the creditor must sue within two years of its date under section 193/35 with the second paragraph of section 193/28.
Supreme Court judgment 4862/2543
Time is interrupted only by an event within section 193/14, and seizure under the Revenue Code is not one; a paper signed accepting an expired claim opened a fresh two-year period under section 193/35.
Supreme Court judgment 4372/2542
A debt under an acknowledgment of liability carries two years from that date; filing an action and withdrawing it does not interrupt time, and proving the debt beyond the two years came too late.
QUESTIONS
Questions this raises
The creditor wants a signature on a paper, saying it only confirms the balance.
What the document is called does not decide the outcome; the date of signing against the date the claim expired does. Signed while the claim is alive, judgment 4507/2547 starts the original period again in full; signed after that, judgment 12264/2555 gives the creditor two years. Either way the debtor's position changes, so the work that belongs before signing is fixing the date the claim expired.
Part of it was paid before anyone realised the claim had expired. Can it be recovered?
The first paragraph of section 193/28 answers this directly: it cannot be recovered, even if the payer did not know the claim had expired. What remains unpaid is a separate question, and the second paragraph of that section speaks of acknowledging liability in writing or by giving security, so the form the act took matters. It also provides that this cannot be relied on against the original guarantor.
LAW
The legislation
- Civil and Commercial Code, sections 193/10 and 193/29
- Civil and Commercial Code, sections 193/14 and 193/15
- Civil and Commercial Code, section 193/17
- Civil and Commercial Code, sections 193/28 and 193/35
ENQUIRIES
