STATE LAW GUIDE

What Defenses Can I Use in Texas?

The Texas rule, with the statute it comes from.

You are not the only one. Hundreds of thousands of these get filed every year, mostly against ordinary people who hit a bad stretch. Life gets messy. None of it makes you a bad person. It just makes you human.

They file these by the thousand. You are doing this once. That gap is the only real advantage they have, and it closes the moment you know what they have to prove. Learn it, use it, fight back strong.

The short answer

Start by filing. A general denial is a sufficient answer in justice court and does not bar you from raising any defense at trial. See Tex. R. Civ. P. 502.5. Your deadline is the end of the 14th day after service. See Tex. R. Civ. P. 501.1.

Then Texas gives you more to work with than most states.

What their petition itself has to say

Texas sets out what a debt claim petition must contain, and a petition that omits it is deficient on its face.

For a credit card, revolving credit or open account, the petition must state the account or credit card name, the account number (which may be masked), the date of issue or origination if known, the date of charge-off or breach if known, the amount owed as of a date certain, and whether ongoing interest is sought.

And if the debt was assigned or transferred, the petition must state that it was transferred or assigned, the date of the transfer, the name of any prior holders of the debt, and the name or description of the original creditor. See Tex. R. Civ. P. 508.2.

Every company suing you as a debt buyer is in that last category. Read their petition against that list. Are all the prior holders named?

The bond, which you can actually check

A third-party debt collector may not engage in debt collection unless it has obtained a surety bond, and a copy of the bond must be filed with the secretary of state. The bond must be in the amount of $10,000. See Tex. Fin. Code 392.101.

That is a public filing. It is checkable.

And it has teeth: a person who successfully maintains an action for a violation of Tex. Fin. Code 392.101 is entitled to not less than $100 for each violation, plus attorney's fees. See Tex. Fin. Code 392.403.

The written dispute, which is stronger than the federal version

If you dispute the accuracy of an item in writing, the third-party debt collector shall make a written record of the dispute and shall cease collection efforts until an investigation determines the accurate amount of the debt, if any. Within 30 days of your notice it must send you a written statement denying the inaccuracy, admitting it, or saying it has not had enough time. See Tex. Fin. Code 392.202.

Note what that says: cease collection until the accurate amount is determined, not merely until something is mailed to you. It is a stronger obligation than the federal rule, and a violation of it also carries the $100 minimum and fees. See Tex. Fin. Code 392.403.

The limitation period

Four years. See Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code 16.004. And for a debt buyer, a barred claim is not revived by a payment or a reaffirmation. See Tex. Fin. Code 392.307. A verbal acknowledgement is not admissible to defeat limitations unless written and signed. See Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code 16.065.

The evidence, which is where most cases turn

None of these is a statute. They are things a plaintiff either can or cannot produce:

Identity. Is this your account?
Ownership. The chain from the original creditor through every prior holder to this plaintiff, and then to your individual account.
Amount. Statements supporting the figure, after all credits and offsets.
Collateral, on a secured retail account. What was it sold for, and was it credited?

And the remedies run both ways

A violation of the debt collection chapter is a deceptive trade practice and is actionable as one. See Tex. Fin. Code 392.404. A consumer may sue for injunctive relief and actual damages, with attorney's fees for success. See Tex. Fin. Code 392.403.

Which is why a defended case in Texas is worth taking to a consumer attorney rather than carrying alone, particularly if anything about the collector's conduct looks wrong.

Citations are read from the Texas Legislature's official statutes site and the Supreme Court of Texas rules, and recorded in the site's citation registry.