So, one of your creditors had been threatening a judgment against you. Unfortunately, he tired of threatening the action and actually carried through with it. Now, he has been granted a court-ordered judgment against you.
To make matters worse, you just found out that your credit score has taken a nose-dive because of the judgment. Many people do not know that a court-ordered judgment can be reported on your credit history for 10-12 years. If the debt remains unpaid at the end of this time period, often the judgment can be renewed. In fact, even a judgment which has been paid can stay on your credit report for seven years after it is paid!
Now, you would like to remove the judgment from your credit report. You need to be aware that it is illegal for credit reporting agencies to remove accurate entries. There are only two ways an entry can be legally removed from a credit report. The first way is to prove that an item is inaccurate. The second way is to dispute the item and, if the creditor cannot verify the item within a legally specified time frame, the credit reporting agency is legally required to remove the item. Items which consumers believe are false can be disputed pursuant to the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA). Included in the FCRA, are judgment and public record items.
You will need to draft and submit a dispute letter to the appropriate credit reporting bureaus if you decide you would like to dispute a judgment which appears on your credit report. There are three major credit reporting bureaus. These three bureaus are TransUnion, Equifax, and Experian. To whom the credit reporting bureau will forward the dispute will depend upon what kind of debt is involved. For instance, a dispute for a car loan judgment could be forwarded to a loan company, bank, car dealership, etc.
Unlike car loans and credit cards, judgment and public record information is located in governmental buildings and maintained by county personnel. In light of this, a judgment dispute will be forwarded in most cases to the county courthouse in your county. As humans verify this type of information, as opposed to fancy software programs, it normally takes longer to verify this type of dispute and, in many cases, the verification is not able to be completed within the specified time frame of 30 days. When this happens, the credit reporting agency, by law, must remove the judgment entry from your credit report.
It is possible for you to move forward with credit repair on your own. However, if you do not have the time or if you just don’t enjoy wrangling with credit reporting agencies, you might consider speaking to a consumer rights attorney. The typical consumer rights attorney has tackled hundreds, and maybe even thousands, of similar cases.
Learn how to Remove a judgement. Discover the only legal way to remove any questionable credit report judgement at www.creditreportjudgement.com.