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Information on Judgment Appearing On Credit Report - The Bills.com Blog
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Information on Judgment Appearing On Credit Report
Question: A civil judgment was filed against me in May, 2006. The court contacted my employer and required that a certain % of my take-home money would be deducted from each paycheck until the specified amount of money had been paid to the creditor. A few months ago, the amount was finally paid off in full. In my current credit report, the civil judgment is a matterof public record. How long should I expect this judgment to stay on the credit report as a public record, and is there anything I can do to adjust this timeline?
Answer: Judgments generally appear on the judgment-debtor’s credit report for seven years from the date of the initial entry of the judgment. This reporting period is dictated by federal law, specifically the Fair Credit Reporting Act, so there is really no way that you can change the time that this judgment will appear on your credit file. Even though the judgment is paid off, it will still appear on your credit report for seven years, though it should now be reporting as a satisfied judgment showing a $0 outstanding balance. The credit reporting agencies should update your credit reports based on information available from your county courts, but if you find that your credit report is still reporting an outstanding judgment balance, you may need to take steps to ensure that the judgment is reported accurately on your credit profile.
I encourage you to obtain a copy of your
credit reports from each of the three major U.S. credit reporting agencies–Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion–to determine if the judgment status has been updated on your credit file. If you find that this judgment is still reflecting an outstanding balance on your credit, you should first contact the court clerk of the court which entered the judgment to verify that the creditor has filed a “satisfaction of judgment” with the court to show that the judgment has been paid. Assuming that the creditor filed the satisfaction, you should obtain a copy of the satisfaction document from the court and send copies of it to the three credit bureaus asking them to update your file to reflect the updated account status.
If the creditor has not filed the satisfaction with the court, you should contact the creditor’s attorney (most likely the law firm that filed the original lawsuit against you) to request that it notify the court that this judgment has been paid off. Once the creditor files the satisfaction of judgment with the court, you should be able to obtain
a copy of the satisfaction and send it to the credit reporting agencies to request that the status of the account be updated on your credit reports. In the unlikely event that the creditor’s attorney is not willing to file the required satisfaction documents with the court, you or your attorney should consider filing a motion with the court requesting that the judgment be updated as being paid and satisfied. However, most creditors will willingly notify the court once the judgment has been paid, as the creditor may be liable for your costs and other possible penalties if it does not notify the court once the judgment has been paid.
To learn more about credit, credit reports, and credit scoring, I encourage you to visit the Bills.com Credit Help page at http://www.bills.com/credit/. I wish you the best of luck in resolving this judgment, and hope that the information I have provided helps you Find. Learn. Save.
Best,
Bill
www.bills.com/blog
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