Many people take it for granted that a debt they already paid needs no proving and that the debt collector’s letter can be ignored until they stop sending it. The Civil Code says that payment extinguishes the obligation (article 1156), but the Civil Procedure Act shares out the burden of proof differently, the claimant proves that the debt arose and the person who paid proves that they paid it (article 217). If you are being chased for a debt you already paid, what you should do is not pay again, not acknowledge anything by phone or in writing, demand in writing a breakdown of what is claimed and who is claiming it, and locate the proof of payment. With that proof the claim is answered and, if the debt reaches a court as a payment order procedure, an objection is filed within twenty working days. If the debt is not yours, or it is more than five years old and nobody has claimed it, the route changes, and I explain that further down.
Payment extinguishes the debt, but you are the one who keeps the proof
Article 1156 of the Civil Code puts payment first among the ways an obligation is extinguished, and article 1157 adds that a debt is not deemed paid until everything owed has been delivered in full. That second rule explains a good number of claims. A partial payment, an amount agreed by phone with a collection agency or a transfer that did not cover the last instalment leave part of the debt alive, and that part keeps generating interest and ends up sold to a fund years later.
In litigation, article 217 of the Civil Procedure Act allocates the burden. Paragraph 2 requires the creditor to prove the facts on which its right rests, the contract, the amount and, if a fund is claiming, the assignment that makes it the holder of the credit. Paragraph 3 requires the debtor to prove the facts that extinguish that right, and payment is the first of them. Paragraph 7 lets the judge weigh which party had easier access to the evidence, which matters when the creditor controls the payment history and all you have is a bank statement.
Two things you can do today on your own follow from this. Gather the contract, the statements for the period in which you paid, the receipts, any letter of discharge or zero-balance certificate and every email and letter exchanged with the creditor, and throw nothing away even if it looks duplicated. And do not sign or accept any «acknowledgement of debt» or «payment plan» proposed by a collection agency, because an acknowledgement interrupts the limitation period (article 1973 of the Civil Code) and creates a fresh title against you over a debt that may never have existed.
Interest, allocation of payments and assignment of credit, the three reasons behind most claims
The first is the order in which payments are applied. Article 1173 of the Civil Code provides that, if the debt bears interest, a payment is not applied to principal while the interest remains unpaid. Someone who paid «what they owed» looking only at the principal may have left a remainder of capital alive, and that remainder keeps accruing interest and collection fees until somebody sells it. The counterweight is article 1110, a receipt for the capital with no reservation as to interest extinguishes the obligation as regards the interest, and a receipt for the last instalment with no reservation extinguishes the earlier instalments. That is why what the receipt you were given says matters so much.
The second is allocation between several debts. If you had more than one debt with the same creditor, article 1172 lets you declare which one the payment goes to, and if you did not, article 1174 applies it to the most burdensome one. A payment with no reference, or with the wrong one, ends up cancelling the debt you did not mean to cancel.
The third is assignment of credit, governed by articles 1526 to 1535. Banks, finance companies and telecoms operators sell whole portfolios of debt to funds, and those portfolios carry the data the seller had on the day of the sale, without the payments that came in afterwards or were recorded wrongly. Article 1527 protects the debtor who paid the original creditor before becoming aware of the assignment, that payment releases you and the fund has to claim from whoever sold to it. Whoever buys a debt must also prove that they bought it, with the assignment contract and the annex in which your specific debt appears, and what is produced is frequently a generic list that identifies nothing. If the credit was already in litigation when it was sold, article 1535 allows the debtor to extinguish it by paying the fund what the fund paid for it, plus costs and interest, within nine days of the fund demanding payment. In practice funds do not disclose the price and that right has to be enforced in court.
Original creditor, fund, collection agency or court, who is claiming changes what you risk
A letter from the entity you signed with, or from the fund that bought your credit, is an out-of-court demand that interrupts the limitation period if it reaches you (article 1973 of the Civil Code), and it is answered in writing, with proof of delivery, denying the debt and enclosing the proof of payment. A call or a letter from a collection agency is worth the same and nothing more. The agency has no power to seize assets, cannot put you on a credit blacklist on its own account and cannot turn up at your home or call your employer. When it does, the pressure may amount to the offence of coercion under article 172 of the Criminal Code. Not replying to a collection agency has no legal consequence in itself. What happens is that the file keeps moving towards the credit blacklist or the court without your version recorded anywhere, and a creditor who genuinely holds an unpaid debt has its own routes to collect it.
A notice from a court is something else. It carries a deadline, and letting it lapse turns the debt into enforcement without a trial. When the claim already comes from a fund or a court, at the firm we check the title to the assignment and the proof of payment and draft the reply or the objection, which is part of the civil law work we practise.
Proving payment without the receipt, transfer, direct debit, cash or intermediary
If you paid by transfer or direct debit, the evidence is at your bank even if you do not have it. Banks keep the transactions and issue duplicates of the transfer confirmation or the direct debit charge, and a statement showing the debit with the reference and the payee is enough to prove payment. Bizum and cards leave the same trail in the app and on the statement. The creditor, if it is a business, is required by article 30 of the Commercial Code to keep its accounts and correspondence for six years, so the receipt of your money also appears in its books, and that is what gives paragraph 7 of article 217 of the Civil Procedure Act its use.
Cash is the problem. A cash payment with no receipt is proved with witnesses, with messages in which the creditor admits having received it or with the creditor’s own accounts, and it is weak evidence. If the creditor was a business or a professional, article 7 of Law 7/2012 prohibits cash payments of one thousand euros or more, which does not void the payment but explains why the creditor will avoid admitting it. If you paid an intermediary, an agency or the collection company itself, article 1162 of the Civil Code validates payment made to the person authorised to receive it, and article 1164 releases whoever paid in good faith to the person in possession of the credit, but you will need the receipt issued by that intermediary identifying the debt it cancelled. With any payment, always ask for a letter of discharge or zero-balance certificate dated and signed by the creditor, which is the document that closes the matter.
The payment order procedure for a paid debt, twenty working days and what happens if you do not reply
The payment order procedure (proceso monitorio) under articles 812 and following of the Civil Procedure Act is the usual route for funds and finance companies, it is available for any amount and it starts with a document which, according to the creditor, evidences the debt. The court serves you with a demand for payment and gives you twenty working days (article 815). Within that period you can pay, in which case the matter is closed (article 817), or file a written objection setting out the reasons why you do not owe the amount, and that objection must be signed by a lawyer and a court agent (procurador) when the sum claimed exceeds two thousand euros (article 818). If you do nothing, article 816 orders enforcement, with attachment of accounts, salary or assets, plus interest and costs, and at that point whether the debt existed is no longer in issue.
Once the objection is filed, the procedure changes form. If the amount claimed does not exceed fifteen thousand euros, the ceiling for the juicio verbal since Royal Decree-Law 6/2023, in force since 20 March 2024, the creditor has ten days to challenge your objection and the case is decided in a juicio verbal. If it exceeds that figure, the creditor has one month to file an ordinary claim and, if it does not, the proceedings are discontinued with costs against it. That trial is where the fund has to produce the assignment and the payment history and where you produce your proof, and if the claimant loses, article 394 orders it to pay the costs. What does not work is going to the court to explain it verbally or emailing the proof to the collection agency in the belief that this stops the clock. The objection is a written pleading with a form and a deadline, and drafting it with the evidence properly ordered is a lawyer’s job.
A debt that is not yours or a debt from ten years ago, article 1964 and limitation
A debt you do not recognise may belong to a namesake, to a contract signed with your details by someone else, to a company you managed or to a deceased relative. If someone took out a contract in your name after obtaining your details, besides denying the debt there is an offence to report, and I explain it in the article on bank impersonation scams and in the one on recovering money after phishing. If the debt belongs to a company, the director is personally liable only in specific statutory cases. If it belongs to a deceased relative, only someone who has accepted the inheritance owes it, and whoever accepted it with benefit of inventory is liable with the inherited assets and nothing more (article 1023 of the Civil Code).
Old debts are defended with limitation. Article 1964.2 of the Civil Code sets a five-year period for personal actions with no special period, counted from when the obligation became enforceable. That period was fifteen years until Law 42/2015, and its fifth transitional provision, read with article 1939, means that debts arising before 7 October 2015 became time-barred by 7 October 2020 at the latest, unless interrupted. A debt from ten years ago is therefore time-barred unless the creditor proves a judicial or out-of-court demand that reached you, or an acknowledgement by you, within the period (article 1973). Two caveats. Limitation is not applied by the judge of his own motion, it has to be pleaded in the objection, and being listed on a credit blacklist interrupts nothing.
| Debt | Period | Rule |
|---|---|---|
| Personal loan, credit card or contract with no special period | Five years from when it became enforceable | Article 1964.2 of the Civil Code |
| Rent and other periodic payments due yearly or at shorter intervals | Three years | Article 1966 of the Civil Code |
| Fees of lawyers, notaries, experts and other professionals | Three years | Article 1967 of the Civil Code |
| Debts arising before 7 October 2015 | Time-barred by 7 October 2020 at the latest, unless interrupted | Fifth transitional provision of Law 42/2015 and article 1939 of the Civil Code |
| Listing on a credit blacklist | Five years from the due date, and only while the default lasts | Article 20.1.d of Organic Law 3/2018 |
Getting off ASNEF or Badexcug and being compensated for a wrongful listing
Article 20 of Organic Law 3/2018 only allows a credit blacklist to record debts that are certain, due and enforceable and whose existence or amount has not been disputed by the debtor, requires the creditor to have warned you of the possibility of listing in the contract or when demanding payment, obliges the file operator to notify you of the listing within thirty days and caps the listing at five years from the due date. A paid debt is neither due nor enforceable, and a debt you have denied in writing does not meet the requirement either. In both cases the listing is unlawful from day one. You can ask the file operator and the creditor for cancellation today, enclosing the proof of payment, and the operator must decide within one month under the General Data Protection Regulation. If it does not, there is a complaint to the Spanish Data Protection Agency.
A wrongful listing also gives a right to compensation. The Supreme Court treats it as an infringement of honour under Organic Law 1/1982, whose article 9.3 presumes harm, and in judgment 245/2019 of 25 April and later rulings it has set criteria for quantifying it by reference to how long the listing lasted, how many other entities consulted it and which loans were refused. That claim is brought by suit against whoever listed you, and how it is quantified and proved is a matter for the lawyer who conducts it.
A claim built on false documents, article 250 of the Criminal Code
Claiming a debt that does not exist is not in itself an offence, it is a civil claim that fails. It becomes one when the claimant tampers with the evidence, with a contract you never signed, an altered statement or a receipt that does not reflect what was received, and thereby obtains a court ruling to your detriment. That is procedural fraud under article 250.1.7 of the Criminal Code, punishable with one to six years in prison and a fine, to which document forgery under articles 392 or 395 is added. It is an uncommon scenario and it has to be well evidenced, but it completely changes the position of whoever was claiming from you.
Frequently asked questions
Who has to prove the debt, me because I paid or them because they claim?
Both, each their own part. Under article 217 of the Civil Procedure Act, the claimant proves that the debt arose and its amount, with the contract and, if it is a fund, the assignment, and you prove that you paid it, with the bank record, the receipt or the letter of discharge. If the claimant does not evidence the debt, there is no need to prove payment.
I paid the principal and now they claim interest, fees or costs, is that legal?
It depends on how the payment was documented. If the creditor gave you a receipt for the capital without reserving interest, article 1110 of the Civil Code treats the interest as extinguished. If there was no receipt and no reservation, article 1173 allows the payment to be applied first to interest and the balance to be claimed. Fees and costs are only owed if they appear in the contract or a judge has set them.
The written objection and what you lose if the deadline passes
What you risk by handling this alone is concrete. An acknowledgement of debt signed for a collection agency revives a time-barred or paid debt, proof of payment sent to the wrong party stops no deadline, and a payment order with no objection within twenty working days ends in attachment with interest and costs even if the debt had been paid. At Perseus & RC Abogados we check the claimant’s title and the evidence of your payment, answer the claim, file the objection and, if you have been placed on a blacklist, seek cancellation and whatever compensation is due, as part of the civil law work we practise in A Coruña. You can write to us through the contact page or call +34 677 841 007.