Legal Question in Credit and Debt Law in Louisiana

I have been contacted by a third party debt collector regarding some very old property tax claims. I used to live in Connecticut, and these property tax claims are from 1995-1998. I sent the debt collector a certified validation request. They responded with a one-page bill, which was printed up this year--it has the 2010 date on it--with no details whatsoever on it. The property tax claims are for motor vehicles, and they are claiming that I owe six different property tax amounts from different vehicles. According to CT, their statute of limitations on this is 15 years. However, property taxes in CT are not done at the state level, they are levied by each town. I currently live in Louisiana, and the longest time for debt statute of limitations here is 10 years. I am curious to know if CT's SOL applies or of my state's SOL does? I know that with consumer debts, the current state applies, but I do not know if this will fall under consumer debts.

Additionally, I did not even live in the town that is claiming property taxes are owed during this time. For part of the time, I did not even live in the state. One of the cars in question was only owned for one month, and they are trying to bill me for two full terms of property tax. I have read up on this debt collector--American National Recovery Group out of New York--and I have found tons of complaints from people dealing with this same problem. I have also discovered that this debt collector isnt even licensed to operate within my state. I refuse to pay these amounts--it seriously looks as if these towns intentionally never sent bills to anyone, and now that the SOL is near they are trying to collect a ton of interest that they dont have a right to, in my opinion.

Could anyone please tell me which statute of limitations applies? Also, there are no records anywhere still in existence to show that I did not live in this town at the time--no business standard anywhere requires such records to be kept for nearly 15 years! Since they are a third party collector, isnt it their responsibility to prove their claims to me? Especially since I requested validation in accordance with FDCPA?


Asked on 7/13/10, 5:10 pm

1 Answer from Attorneys
Nick Pizzolatto, Jr. Pizzolatto Law Office

First of all, the law where the tax is owed is what controls. Second of all, this sounds like a scam! Why are you even responding to them if you never lived in the locale that is trying to collect. If you fall for this one, I can get you 10 million dollars tax free from a nigerian woman who is ill and wants to leave her money to you!

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Answered on 7/14/10, 5:22 pm


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