It's known now that they're a problem, and they're choosing right now to continue with that problem rather than spend the time/money/effort to change them. Tha

It's known now that they're a problem, and they're choosing right now to continue with that problem rather than spend the time/money/effort to change them. That's still technical debt. If it helps, you can see it as starting right now, rather than when the code was written. Either way, they're choosing to continue to have problems rather than pay off that debt... yet.