Legal Question in Credit and Debt Law in Georgia

How long you have is based on a contract. We don't have it and you did not tell us the facts. You can go to collections when a bill is late. You have that information - we don't.

You haven't given us the facts needed to answer, as they are all found in the contract you signed and on your bill. Generally, if you are one second late, a creditor can turn you over to a collection agency or sue you and there is no right unless written settlement is made to pay less than what owed.

I would agree. The answer is it depends on a whole bunch of factors which you do not tell us.

If this is a medical debt, my experience has been that hospitals are not banks. Even if you are paying what you can afford or what you and the hospital agreed to verbally, they can turn you over immediately if the bill is not paid. This is legal. There was a bill proposed in Congress on this that required a 45-day waiting period but it never made it out of committee so its dead for now.

If this is a credit card debt, then most creditors will try to keep the debt for 90-180 days. 180 days is the longest that a creditor will go before they charge off the debt (charge off is just an accounting term used to refer to bad debts - it means nothing in terms of your responsibility for the debt). Once it is charged off it is then sent out for collection. However, once a bill is over 30 days late, the lateness of your payment is reported to the credit bureaus immediately.

If its some other kind of contract, you can read your contract, but most standard language will not discuss how long it has to be before you are turned over for collection. Again, you could use the 90-180 period as a guide, but it depends on the creditor. If its somebody like a doctor or contractor, they don'y have to wait 90 days and can turn you over sooner.

In light of your question, I assume that there is no agreement with a collection agency as of yet. If you make an agreement with the collection agency, GET IT IN WRITING BEFORE YOU PAY THEM A DIME! You are opening yourself up to problems if you don't do this.