Legal Question in Credit and Debt Law in Washington

Re: Time limitation on back-billing?

The statute of limitations in WA on an agreement that is NOT in writing (an oral agreement) is three years.

If the agreement is in writing, the statute is six years.

There are law offices that specialize in representing HOA's, and if you have one, I would run this problem past them.

The issue is that the company appears to have done the work, and thus has a claim for quantum meruit - or, "as much as they deserve", which means if they sued you to get the payment for the monitoring, a court could well award them attorney fees and pre-judgment interest on what they failed to bill you.

Your defense is that they failed to enforce the agreement sooner, and thus have waived the arrearage.

I would be cautious before allowing this to get to litigation, as it could be expensive. It might be in the HOA's interest to make an offer to settle the matter quickly rather than going to court.

You might want to check and see if your HOA has an officer's errors and omissions policy that would cover this.

Hope this helps - Powell