Thank you for sending the question to Phong & Partners Law Firm, we give You some advice about your problem as follows:
Firstly, You can sue A company for repayment.
As you said, the statute of limitations for lawsuits to request A company to make payment debts from an agreement expired. Particularly, Article 429, Civil Code 2015 provides that: “The statute of limitations for lawsuits to request court to solve an agreement dispute is 03 years from the date which applicant knows or must know that legal rights and benefits of her/his own are violated”. In your case, A company infringed upon payment obligation over 03 years from the date of late December, 2017 to now, which means the statute of limitations for a lawsuit expired according to these provisions of law. However, the expiration of the statute of limitations for lawsuits does not mean that You lose the right to sue.
Specifically:
Clause 2, Article 149 Civil Code 2015 provides that: “The court will only apply provisions of the statute of limitations for lawsuits according to request of one party or both parties if the request is created before having the judgment of first-instance court”. As the above-prescribed regulation, despite the expiration of the statute of limitations for lawsuits, You still have the sue right to protect legal rights and benefits of your own because the court will only apply provision of the statute of limitations for lawsuits according to A company’s request if this request is created before having the judgment of first-instance court.
Secondly, once the statute of limitations for lawsuits expires, You will have disadvantages if You sue.
If A company does not request the court to apply the statute of limitations for lawsuits, the court will still accept and solve the dispute in accordance with normal procedures. On the other hand, A company knows the expiration of the statute of limitations for lawsuits and requests the court to apply before having the judgment of the first-instance court, the court will have Decision on suspending the resolution of the civil case as stipulated in Point e, Clause 1, Article 217 Civil procedure Code 2015 (You will not have any chance to recover the debts in this case).
Thirdly, to avoid risks as the 02 above cases, You need to reset the statute of limitations for lawsuits before suing.
Article 157 Civil Code 2015 provides that:
“1. Statute of limitations for lawsuits restart as following cases:
a) Obligated party admitted a part or the whole part obligations to plaintiff;
b) Obligated party admits or fulfills a part of obligation to plaintiff;
c) Both parties conciliated voluntarily.
2. Statute of limitations for lawsuits restarts from the following date after the happened date of event in accordance with Clause 1 of this Article.”
In your case, although the statute of limitations of lawsuits is expired, but if A company still admits its obligations with You, and even if A Company just admits a part of its obligations; fulfills a part of obligations; or if both parties conciliate voluntarily, the statute of limitations for lawsuits will be recovered. The moment to recover the statute of limitations for lawsuits is the following date from the date which A company admits its obligations.
About late payment of A company, because You requested A company many times to make payment but A company did not reply, therefore, to reset the statute of limitations of lawsuits effectively, You should look for more information about the operation status, opinion, attitude of A company with the debts. You can carry out some solutions such as continuing to negotiate to recover the debts with a calm-down attitude; finding ways to confirm the debts when you have a chance to negotiate with A company about adjustment for the time limit of payment in the agreement… Meeting directly, sending text and messaging, etc can be foundations to force A company into admitting the debts. Then, the statute of limitations for suitlaws will restart from the following date after the happened date of one of these events. Therefore, by resetting the statute of limitations for lawsuits, You can conduct procedures to sue A company without any concerns about the expiration of the statute of limitations for suitlaws.
If You need to understand this problem more, You can contact us via email, telephone number or you can visit our Firm to be consulted by a team of lawyers.
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PHONG & PARTNERS LAW FIRM
Add: 6th Floor, Thanh Loi Building, 249 Nguyen Van Linh Street, Danang city - 0905.102425
Son Tra Branch: 01 Dong Giang street, Danang city - 0905.205624
Lien Chieu Branch: 21 Truong Van Da street, Danang city - 0901.95099
Ngu Hanh Son Branch: 03 Chu Cam Phong street, Danang city - 0905.579269
Tel: 0236.3822678
Email: phongpartnerslaw@gmail.com
