Is there a deadline for firms to bill me?

Q I regularly use my credit card for work purchases as well as personal spending, and clear the debt each month. To keep track of the separate spending I write individual cheques for each purchase and tally all the cheques against the bill when it comes in.

Several times in the last five years I have found that purchases made are not listed on my bills and I am left with uncashed cheques, in one case for nearly six years. Since April it has happened on four separate occasions so I now have cheques worth ?350 unclaimed from my account even though no supplier has complained, which suggests they have been paid.

Have I hit upon the secret of wealth creation? How long have I got until these debts are written off and I can assume the money remains mine?

EB

A Generally, you remain legally responsible for your unsecured debts - those run up on personal loans, credit cards, stores cards and such like - for six years after they are incurred. So the good news is that you're almost out of the woods on at least some of your unclaimed debts.

However, as with anything where the law is concerned, things are not exactly black and white. The OFT's guidelines on debt recovery state that a creditor would have the right to pursue you for debts older than six year only if it had been in regular contact with you, you had admitted owing the money and you had made any payment towards the debt during the six-year period.

This is a bit of a tricky one to interpret when it comes to credit cards, as you regularly make payments and get a regular bill from your credit card provider, though presumably the fact that your credit card bill is cleared each month could be seen as the last contact made between you and your creditors on that particular debt.

At this stage you might as well wait and see whether you can get beyond the six-year deadline. If your credit card issuer pursues you for the debts after that, you can argue that it is statute-barred from taking you to court over the debt - though it wouldn't do any harm to check with the National Debtline on 0808 808 4000 that this is a solid argument before spending the uncashed cheques.