Statute of Limitations on Debts in Chile

How debt prescription works in Chile

The Civil Code calls it prescripción extintiva. After a legal period without enforcement, a creditor loses the ability to compel payment through the courts. The general rule is that ordinary claims expire in five years, executory claims in three, and an executory claim that has lapsed can survive as an ordinary one for a further period. Some obligations carry shorter special periods, and checks, bills and promissory notes are governed by their own statutes.

The point most English-speaking clients miss is that prescription is not self-executing. A judge cannot apply it on their own motion. The debtor must expressly raise it in the lawsuit, usually as a defense. If the debtor says nothing, the court can order payment of a debt that is technically expired.

When the clock starts, stops and restarts

The period normally begins when the debt becomes due. It can be interrupted by the creditor filing and serving a lawsuit in time, and by the debtor acknowledging the debt, expressly or by conduct such as a partial payment or a payment plan. When interrupted, a new period begins. A casual email or a collection letter does not usually have this effect on its own, but written acknowledgments by the debtor can.

Living abroad does not stop the clock. Absence from Chile is not by itself a ground for suspending prescription, so a debtor who left the country years ago may still have a valid defense, and a creditor who waited for the debtor to come back may have waited too long.

What we handle

What an expired debt actually is

Once prescription is declared, the debt does not become illegal. It becomes a natural obligation, which the creditor cannot enforce in court but which the debtor can still choose to pay, and that payment cannot later be reclaimed. This is why advice about restarting the clock matters: signing a new acknowledgment or promising payment can revive a claim that might otherwise have been lost.

Different debts have different rules, so we always start with the document: a bank loan, a promissory note, an unpaid invoice, a check and a personal loan do not all expire in the same way.

Common mistakes debtors and creditors make

Debtors sometimes ignore a lawsuit because they believe the debt has expired, and lose by default because they never raised prescription. Others sign a repayment plan on an old debt without realizing it may restart the clock. Creditors often rely on repeated reminders for years and then discover that none of them interrupted the period.

The safest course on either side is to calculate the dates before any payment, signature or filing, and to keep every document that shows when a payment was due and made.