Remove Bankruptcy and Charge Off From Credit Reports

A derogatory item will appear on the credit report for 7 ½ years from the time of your first deinquency. The bankruptcy will remain for 10 years. Generally speaking, any account included in a bankruptcy filing will appear on a credit report as "included in bankruptcy," and reflect a $0 balance. It should not appear as open and past due, though previous delinquencies may remain even after a bankruptcy filing.

For more information and tips on how to dispute the items see the Bills.com page derogatory item on credit report after bankruptcy.

I assume you are referring to what you see on your credit report.

Once a debt is discharged in chapter 7 bankruptcy the debtor no longer has personal liability for the debt. The debt is extinguished. However, mortgages and deeds in trust are secured by property. This means the lender still has the right to foreclose if the debtor stops making payments. You do not mention where you are in the chapter 7. Did the bankruptcy court issue the discharge order yet? If no, then the mortgage lender is stayed — frozen from acting until the court issues its final discharge order. If the bankruptcy discharge was published, what did it say?

Regarding your credit report, the mortgage lender will cease to report any new information on your mortgage to the credit reporting agencies. Consult with your bankruptcy lawyer for a more detailed response to your question, which will be based on your exact circumstances.

Call your county bar association and ask for the names of the organizations that provide no-cost legal services to people in your area who have no or low income. Make an appointment with one of the organizations, and bring all of the documents you have regarding your debt to your meeting. The lawyer you meet will advise you accordingly.

Accurate derogatory entries on a credit report can remain on a credit report for 7½ years after the date of first delinquency. A bankruptcy can appear for 10 years. You have the right to dispute an inaccurate entry on your credit report.

The first thing to try is a dispute with the big-three consumer credit reporting agencies.

I had to file chapter 7 bankruptcy in 1994 after the death of my first husband; I hated it and it made me feel terrible; within a short time I rebuilt my credit; remarried, and five years after the bankruptcy bought a house; not much problem at all but then in 2003 after a terrible accident we tried to refinance and the bank official sitting behind his desk said, "I don't know how you got the house to begin with" which hurt of course; he then said, FLEET had reported that I was 22 times late out of the last 24 months. Here is where it gets good; I never had a fleet account of any kind and it drove me crazy but to be able to take advantage of the low interest rates at the time my husband had to refinance on his income alone while I was busy fighting with the credit agencies about this account named FLEET. I finally pulled out my old discharge papers from 9 years before at this point and finally figured this out; I just checked account numbers and finally found one that matched this stupid FLEET account that I never had and here it had been discharged in the Chapter Seven 9 years before but under a different bank so then I investigated and found that Fleet bought this bank and obviously they either were not told of discharged debts or FLEET still thought it would try to get the money; Experian and Transunion changed things right away when I sent the evidence but EQUIFAX would not; they refused. I sent a fax to FLEET and they did nothing until finally i called to speak to a supervisor at EQUIFAX and the girl that answered said she would call me back which of course she never did; finally, I received another copy of a credit report and all they did was replace that it was included in a bankruptcy. It was terrible and really made me realize what can happen; as if the bankruptcy was not hurtful enough and made me feel bad enough nine years earlier they had to get in there before the deadline of ten years and still make me feel terrible and have to fight them with every thing I had in me. So this is just a lesson for all of you; you will have to watch your credit report constantly or end up in the situation I did; the credit reporting agencies and the companies are terrible people and do not care if their careless mistake ruins anyone's life or not; we who have had to file bankruptcy know what it does to our own self esteem but they do not care; they act like everyone does it because they want to. Now, speed up to 2010; my husband's pay was cut big time at work and he was keeping secrets because he did not want me to know how bad we were in debt until finally he had to tell me so he filed bankruptcy but according to the means test we did keep our house and never wanted to include it anyway. I am on a survivorship deed now from the earlier think the credit agencies had done to me but we did not file against the bank and I would not file with him after what had happened to me so many years ago; now he received his free copies online and it has that fifth Third Bank was in the bankruptcy but then it shows never late; paying as agreed; well, I suppose so they automatically take our house with our escrow payment taken out of our account and it has been that way for 11 years so we have never been late on our house payment so now I am angry again because it is inaccurate; totally again. None of these people are decent; they are greedy, mean, not understanding and really just do not give a darn about anyone but them except they will take our taxpayer money to bail them out. Something needs to be done; I mean really done to these wrong things being reported and also to the credit agencies for reporting it; why should something a creditor says hold more water then what we say; they should have proof before it is even put on the records; I believe they should give the person warning about it perhaps being put on the credit report if you cannot show that it is wrong within a certain amount of time and I don't mean ten days either; it takes longer than that sometimes just to get the records you need to prove your case; that is what should be done. One more thing; on the bankruptcy from 94 I reaffirmed with several companies that I felt I could handle and still live and I paid them every penny but one of them later was involved in a class action lawsuit and of course I sent that little white card to the the lawyer and guess what that company had to pay everyone back that had reaffirmed with them because they lied to the person saying they would be able to use the credit card but no one was so that was one tiny victory for consumers but that is all. I am sorry it has taken so long to write this but I really wanted to let people know how bad all these people are and we, alone, as the little guy cannot all afford lawyers to fight these people alone and that is what they count on. that is our weakness; money or lack of