13 Year Old Utility Bill taken from Tax Return?

[SouthernMomma]

My husband and I received a letter on Friday stating that he had an "Outstanding" Utility Bill from Hampton Roads, VA and that the balance was being taken out of our State Tax Return.

This morning, he called the number on the letter to find out what it was for, since we haven't lived in Hampton Roads in many years. And he was informed that it was a water bill from the year 1999, it was closed out in Feb 2000. We moved out of Hampton Roads in Jan of 2000, but we moved out of the apartment in question in Nov 1999!

We have NEVER received any communication about an unpaid bill. Now they've taken it from our State Tax Return, and are basically telling us, that we need to show our lease from 13 years ago, that shows when we moved out! Obviously, we don't have that.

A friend told me to look up statute of limitations, and I did, and from what I'm reading, it's long since expired.............. Any ideas on what we can do? If anything at all?

[AFFA]

Re: 13 Year Old Utility Bill taken from Tax Return?

I wish to inform you that you can inform utility company that debt is time barred and thus cannot be recovered. Further you can contact tax authorities to know the situation of deduction and can inform them that debt is time barred. If other party is taking any action to recover time barred debt and if deduction for that debt is being made then you can seek court order restraining any deduction based upon time barred debt.

AFF

[Disagreeable]

Re: 13 Year Old Utility Bill taken from Tax Return?

Generally, utilities enjoy special considerations when it comes to unpaid bills. Especially if they are city run. You would need to do a lot of leg work to determine if they were legally entitled to obtain the judgement and enforce it.