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Limitation Act 1980: Difference between revisions
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See the [http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1980/58 text in the act itself] for more [[tedious]] detail about what happens in the case of personal injury or death. | See the [http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1980/58 text in the act itself] for more [[tedious]] detail about what happens in the case of personal injury or death. | ||
===[[Set-off]], Geoffrey Boycott’s grandmother and ''Der fliegende Holländer''=== | |||
Curious coda: The [[Limitation Act]]’s limitation period may deprives you of your right to take ''legal action'' to recover a [[debt]], but doesn’t ''extinguish'' the debt itself. The limitation is on the remedy not the right. | |||
:''An action founded on [[simple contract]] shall not be brought after the expiration of six years from the date on which the [[cause of action]] accrued.'' | |||
The debt still exists, like a damned old Dutch sea-captain, constrained to roam the endless seas for all eternity, carrying that asset but never able to bring it ashore, except by sleight of hand or cool trickery. If you can compel your debtor to acknowledge it — or to forget to notice the limitation — somehow, all is not lost. A debtor that pays in ignorance that the claim has become time-barred cannot reclaim its money. | |||
Now, you might say a promise a fellow ''has'', but about which he can’t put himself at the mercy of Her Majesty’s Courts isn’t much use when you are dealing with the kind of [[ISDA ninja|ninja]]s we see in the financial markets — Sir Geoffrey Boycott’s dear grandmother facing down the West Indies’ pace attack with a stick of rhubarb comes to mind — but there are a few pieces of legal conjuring that might yet avail you: in particular, the [[negligence]] of your opponent’s counsel, should they fail to plead the [[Limitation Act]], and, even better than that, ''[[set-off]]''. | |||
For Her Majesty’s judiciary are not needed to effect a [[set-off]]: it is a self-help remedy you can mend and make do on your own. Should you owe the same debtor some money under a live obligation, you might seek to set that off against your dead one. | |||
===“[[Simple contract]]s”=== | ===“[[Simple contract]]s”=== | ||
Of course, what we finance types care about are claims under ''{{t|contract}}s''. About those, and that curious expression “[[simple contract]]s”: | |||
{{simplecontract}} | {{simplecontract}} | ||
This was designed to ameliorate the [[common law]] position from difficult cases like {{cite1|Re Brown’s Estate|1893|2Ch|300}}, that a [[loan]] repayable on demand | This was designed to ameliorate the [[common law]] position from difficult cases like {{cite1|Re Brown’s Estate|1893|2Ch|300}}, that a [[loan]] repayable on demand is treated as being repayable immediately, and the [[limitation period]] runs from the day the loan is advanced. {{cite1|Re Brown’s Estate|1893|2Ch|300}} was an utterly bonkers decision, by the way: it means if you ask for your deposit to be repaid five years and 364 days after you placed it — being the day before the limitation period expires — you must immediately launch court proceedings to recover your money, or lose it altogether. | ||
Anyway, all fixed now: If you don’t have an obligation to repay the money at a particular time, absent a demand, the [[limitation period]] only starts to run from the date of demand. | Anyway, all fixed now: If you don’t have an obligation to repay the money at a particular time, absent a demand, the [[limitation period]] only starts to run from the date of demand. | ||