Removing a bankruptcy can be one of the biggest challenges that you will face when it comes to repairing your credit rating. The reason for this is, in order to remove a filed bankruptcy from your credit report you must remove every last account on your credit reports that mentions you filed bankruptcy. What you will usually find is that 80% or more of the accounts will be easy for you to remove from your credit reports while there will almost always be a few “stickier” accounts that just won’t go away without a fight.
The First Step:
You must review your credit reports carefully and highlight every account that mentions “included in bankruptcy” or “bankruptcy” in general. These are the accounts that you must remove to completely rid your credit file of the stigma that goes along with filing in the first place? If you have moved since you have filed you would first want to remove the old address or addresses to make the credit repair process easier.
The Second Step:
Now you must go through and effectively dispute every account that you found in step one. You will want to find errors in the way the accounts are reporting and dispute these errors. For example, if the account balance is incorrect or the credit limit, dispute that as inaccurate and ask the account to be deleted permanently. Since the majority of creditors will not validate the request from the credit bureaus on accounts that they have closed due to being included in a bankruptcy, you will find a lot of the accounts will simply go away forever using this method. This process can take several months, but you must be patient. Your patience will be worth it.
The Third Step:
Now we are going to take a look at how the bankruptcy is stored. Understanding how the filing of the actual bankruptcy works will help us to successfully remove it from your credit profiles. After a period of two years your file is moved from your local court house at which it was filed and moved to a central storage place. If you visit your local court to ask to see your file, you will have to submit a request for them to retrieve the file from the centralized storage location. You must have them order it. It will take about one week for it to arrive. Once they receive the file, they will notify you of its arrival. During this time is when you will want to dispute the bankruptcy with all three credit bureaus. The credit bureaus will contact the central storage facility and low and behold the file will not be there for them to verify it. You must delay your local court in going to view the actual file as long as possible. The credit bureaus only have 30 days to verify the file.
For more information on how to have a bankruptcy removed from credit please visit my Lexington Law review page.
If you have a charge off on your credit report most likely it is from a credit card that you stopped making payment on. Once you stop making payments, the creditor will “charge off” the debt and receive a little tax credit for their loss. This does not however, imply that you no longer owe on the debts. Some creditors will hold onto the debt and attempt to collect on it themselves, some hire collection agencies to collect for them, while even others will sell the debt outright to junk debt buyers.
Charge offs are absolutely brutal to your credit reports and scores. Your ability to obtain new credit will be significantly impaired. Once a debt is charged off it will remain on your credit reports for up to seven years from the date of last “mutual” activity which is usually the date of your last payment. If you make any payments afterwards you can re-start the clock.
Once your debt is charged off you have few options:
Option #1
Reach a settlement with the creditor to pay off the charge off and ask for the charge off to be removed from your credit records as part of the settlement offer. Depending on the age of the charge off, you might be able to get settlement for as little as 40% – 50% of the original balance. If the charge off is relatively newer, you will most likely have to pay it in full. If the creditor will not agree to remove the charge off from your credit reports, once it is paid in full you should dispute the charge off with the credit bureaus. More than likely since it is paid it will be removed.
Option #2
If you would rather not pay the charge off then you can still attempt to remove the charge off from your credit reports by disputing it with the credit bureaus. There is a chance that it will be placed on your credit report again down the road. Also, the credit can attempt to get a judgement on your credit report to collect on the debt. If this happens you can ask for debt validation to ensure that they have proof enough to collect on the debt.
If you are facing a charge off on your credit I suggest contacting Lexington Law Firm as they specialize in charge off removal. If you have more questions in regards to charge offs or credit in general please visit my credit forum.
A credit report judgement is a court order ordering repayment of a debt. A judgement on your credit report will affect your credit scores and generally will have to be paid before you can acquire a mortgage. The court order will require repayment during a specific period of time.
The majority of lenders will not allow you to close on a mortgage with a judgement on your credit. The judgement will need to be paid in full and released before you will be allowed to close on your mortgage.
Once you have paid the judgement off and had it “released” the judgement will still be showing on your credit report. This can still be detrimental when it comes to applying for any other forms of credit.
Removing your credit report judgement can be as simple as writing a letter to each of the credit reporting agencies that the credit report judgement is being reported on. Usually, the judgement will be reporting to all three of the major credit bureaus, Equifax, Experian and Trans Union. If the judgement has been paid, you should dispute the accuracy of the way the judgement is reporting…i.e. the date or the original amount.
If the judgement is not verified within a certain time period, the item will be removed from your credit report. If it does comes back as verified, then you should write another letter disputing another part of the judgement as being inaccurate. You will need to follow up until your dispute has worked at all the credit bureaus that the credit report judgement is reporting on.
If this all seems a little complicated for you or if you are dealing with more than just a credit report judgement, I suggest contacting a professional credit repair law firm such as Lexington Law. They deal with removing items from credit report judgements and other items daily.