The Interrupted Prescription Period and the Suspended Contract
On 1 Farvardin 1398, A sells B a residential apartment for 12,000,000,000 rials, payable in two installments. B pays the first installment but defaults on the second, due 1 Mehr 1398. A does not sue. On 1 Farvardin 1401, before the limitation period expires, A and B sign a written agreement suspending any claim for one year so B can obtain financing; the writing is signed and dated by both. B still does not pay. A sues on 1 Khordad 1402. B pleads that the claim is time-barred under the five-year rule of the Civil Code. A responds that the suspension agreement interrupted the period and that, in any event, the limitation period does not extinguish the underlying right but only the right to sue. The court must decide whether A's claim is admissible and whether the suspension was effective.
1. Is B's limitation defense well-founded? Analyze the running of the period and the effect of the 1401 suspension agreement.
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Start from the due date: 1 Mehr 1398. The limitation period for a monetary claim of this type is five years, so absent interruption it would expire 1 Mehr 1403. The parties' agreement of 1 Farvardin 1401 falls well within that window.
Two distinct issues must be separated:
- Effect of the agreement. A contractual suspension does not by itself stop the statutory clock unless the law recognizes the ground. The relevant question is whether the debtor's acknowledgment of the debt or an agreement to defer constitutes an interruption (qat'-e morur-e zaman). A written, signed acknowledgment of the obligation and of a deferral is generally treated as an acknowledgment that restarts the period, not merely a private pact. Even on the more conservative view that it merely suspends, the one-year suspension pushes the expiry to 1 Mehr 1404.
- Effect of expiry. Even if the period had run, Iranian doctrine and the Civil Code treat limitation as barring the hearing of the claim (masmu' na-budan-e da'va), not as extinguishing the substantive right. A court may raise it only if the debtor pleads it; here B did plead it, so it is properly before the court.
Conclusion: the defense fails. The 1401 writing interrupted/restarted the period, and suit on 1 Khordad 1402 is timely. Even if the court treated the period as expired, it would dismiss the claim as inadmissible rather than declare the debt extinguished - a distinction A should press if the court signals otherwise.
2. Suppose the suspension agreement had been signed only by B (an acknowledgment) and not by A. Would the result change?
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No. The operative act is the debtor's acknowledgment of the debt. A debtor's unilateral written acknowledgment that the obligation exists and remains unpaid is sufficient to interrupt the period; the creditor's counter-signature is not required, because the acknowledgment operates against the acknowledger. The absence of A's signature therefore does not weaken A's position - if anything, B's signed acknowledgment is the cleaner basis for interruption than a bilateral deferral whose legal characterization is contested. The court should treat the period as restarted from the date of B's acknowledgment.