How to plead the statute of limitations: defence and evidence

When this applies

This guide is for a de­fen­dant who has re­ceived a civil claim and be­lieves it may have been brought too late. Common ex­am­ples in Kyiv include an old loan agree­ment, an unpaid service debt or invoice, a claim under a promis­so­ry note, or a dispute over ad­di­tion­al amounts after a payment default.

The statute of lim­i­ta­tions does not prevent a claim from being filed. The court accepts it for con­sid­er­a­tion re­gard­less of how much time has passed. The de­fen­dant’s task is there­fore not just to count the years, but to ex­press­ly ask the court to apply the con­se­quences of expiry and explain why the period has run out.

If you learned about an old debt through an account arrest rather than a claim, first find out which en­force­ment doc­u­ment is being en­forced. Lim­i­ta­tion may be an ar­gu­ment in a debt dispute, but it does not always au­to­mat­i­cal­ly lift an arrest in pro­ceed­ings that are already under way.

Which time limit or procedure applies

The general lim­i­ta­tion period under the Civil Code is three years, but that does not answer every dispute. A special period may apply to certain claims, a written agree­ment may extend the period, and some claims are not subject to lim­i­ta­tion at all.

The period usually starts on the day a person learned or could have learned that their right had been in­fringed or who in­fringed it. For con­tracts with a spec­i­fied per­for­mance date, it is im­por­tant to iden­ti­fy exactly when payment, re­pay­ment, or another oblig­a­tion became due.

The key pro­ce­dur­al rule is that the court applies lim­i­ta­tion only if a party to the dispute raises it before the de­ci­sion is issued. In prac­tice, set out this po­si­tion in the state­ment of defence or a sep­a­rate written motion, rather than waiting until the final hearing.

Steps to take

First, iden­ti­fy the pro­ce­dur­al dead­line for your state­ment of defence. It is stated in the order opening pro­ceed­ings. Keep the en­ve­lope, postal track­ing in­for­ma­tion, or elec­tron­ic-cabinet notice to show when you re­ceived the claim and at­tach­ments.

Next, build a time­line of the dispute. For a debt, this may include the con­tract date, the last payment date, when the cred­i­tor became en­ti­tled to demand payment, the date of a demand, and the date the claim was filed. Keep a doc­u­ment for each date: the con­tract, invoice, state­ment, cor­re­spon­dence, or bank state­ment.

Then check whether any­thing hap­pened that could change the period. Ac­knowl­edge­ment of the debt, a partial payment, a rec­on­cil­i­a­tion state­ment, an earlier claim, or cir­cum­stances causing sus­pen­sion may affect the con­clu­sion. If none of these events oc­curred, say so ex­press­ly in your defence.

State your request clearly: ask the court to apply the con­se­quences of expiry to a spe­cif­ic claim or part of it. Include your cal­cu­la­tion, ref­er­ences to the Civil Code, and copies of the ev­i­dence. Send copies of the defence and at­tach­ments to the other par­tic­i­pants as re­quired by the Civil Pro­ce­dure Code.

What to check before filing

Before filing, confirm that you have iden­ti­fied the type of claim cor­rect­ly. For example, prin­ci­pal debt, a penalty, 3% annual in­ter­est, in­fla­tion losses, or fore­clo­sure on col­lat­er­al may require dif­fer­ent ar­gu­ments. If you raise lim­i­ta­tion only in general terms, the court may not know which part of the claim you mean.

Also check whether the claimant relies on cir­cum­stances that could justify a dif­fer­ent start date. In dis­putes in­volv­ing mul­ti­ple pay­ments, lim­i­ta­tion may be cal­cu­lat­ed sep­a­rate­ly for each overdue payment. In a dispute about re­pay­ment, a grace period or the date a demand was made may matter.

For Kyiv cases, also check the elec­tron­ic cabinet, the court, the case number, and every at­tach­ment to the claim. If some ev­i­dence is missing, you can ask the court to obtain the ma­te­ri­als or state that the claimant has not proved the start date on which their case depends.

When to consult a lawyer

A lawyer can help when the amount is sig­nif­i­cant, the claim in­cludes several demands, there are rec­on­cil­i­a­tion state­ments or partial pay­ments, earlier court cases exist, or the start date is dis­put­ed. In those sit­u­a­tions, a mistake in one sen­tence of the defence can un­der­mine an oth­er­wise strong lim­i­ta­tion ar­gu­ment.

For Kyiv cases, advice is useful before the first filing: a lawyer can quickly assess whether to raise lim­i­ta­tion, which claims it applies to, what doc­u­ments to attach, and how to combine this defence with other ar­gu­ments against the claim.