Understanding Prescription and Statutory Limitations in Law

Posted on Dec 7, 2024 in Law & Jurisprudence

Prescription (Suspension or Interruption Time)

– Broad sense: Prescription is a legal institution concerning the changes that may occur in a particular situation or legal relationship as a result of the passage of time.

– Strict sense: The requirement is set as a limit that affects the exercise of rights and powers. This institution determines the extinction of claims that arise from not providing adequate signs of life during the period set by law: silence in the exercise together with time.

– Prescription Requirements: Inactivity/lack of exercise in the claim + prolonged and uninterrupted inactivity during the temporary period of time (limitation period) required by law.

– The 3 periods or statutory periods of limitation (First Law of CCCatalunya):

  • The General Requirement of Ten Years (art. 121-20 CCCat.): Claims of any kind, if they have marked a period in the CC and in special law, lapse after 10 years of adverse possession law.
  • The Requirement of Three Years (art. 121-21 CCCat.): Generally, claims for certain payments, given the nature of the obligation already committed, or the source of the obligation for the birth, which are legally defined, prescribe in a shorter period of 3 years:
    • The claim for periodic payments that are due for years or at shorter intervals.
    • The claims concerning the remuneration of services and execution of works.
    • The claim for payment of the price of consumer sales.
    • Claims arising from contractual liability.
  • The Annual Requirement (art. 121-22 CCCat.): Protective claims of possession prescribed only after 1 year. This applies to the owner, regardless of the title, who can exercise and retain possession and recover it when stripped. This only includes possessory holdings, excluding those where the law is discussed.

– The statute of limitations starts when the claim is born and when the holder knows or can reasonably be expected to know the circumstances behind it and the person against whom it may be exercised (art. 121-23 CCCat.). To produce the prescription, there must be continuous inactivity for the period required by law. However, a disruption in that requirement may occur, which is the act of breaking the silence in which the ratio remained, due to a cause that prevents the prescription and forces it to restart (erasing everything above).


Thus, the statute of limitations that applies to the claim entirely resets from the start, as the cause has ceased interrupting, without considering the previous withdrawal.

– The causes of disruption are as follows (121-11 CCCat.):

  • The exercise of the claim before the courts, even if rejected by procedural default.
  • The initiation of arbitral proceedings on the claim or the filing of the demand for legal formalization of the arbitration.
  • Extrajudicial claim of the claim.
  • The recognition of the right or the waiver of the requirement.

The specific effect of the interruption is that the period of limitation must begin to run again and complete.

– Differences with the earlier termination of the suspension: The suspension is based on a simple paralysis in the limitation period, which is not eliminated. After the cessation of suspension, the requirement resumes taking into account the elapsed time. The requirement is suspended when there is a force majeure in the six months immediately preceding the end of the limitation term that prevents the holder of the claim from exercising it, either by himself or by proxy. These cases of force majeure may include natural disasters (water, fire, etc.), wars, etc. In addition to the general cause of force majeure, there are two particular causes that justify personal reasons or family (art. 121-6 CCCat.) or the status of the estate (art. 121-7 CCCat.). Suspending deadlines for:

  • The claims that exist between those called to inherit and the inheritance that is not accepted as lying.
  • The claims of holders who are minors or incompetent until they have appointed a legal representative.
  • The claims that may exist between spouses while equity exists until legal separation or de facto separation.
  • The claims that may exist between members of a stable partnership while maintaining coexistence.
  • The claims that may exist between parents and children under their authority until it is extinguished.
  • The claims that may exist between those who hold the position of guardian, conservator, estate administrator, guardian ad litem, or cozy minor or incapable while maintaining their function.

– Interruption and suspension of the statute of limitations benefit or harm the active position of the legal relationship in which the claim arose.