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Judgment On My Credit Report

By Jacobey Larstons

Republish: EasyPublish™ Published: 21Mar2012 Word count: 571 Viewed: 79 time(s) Get Free Content For Your Site

If you have a judgment on your credit report you need to pay this item immediate attention. Depending on what state you live in a judgment could cause your wages to be garnished, liens placed against your home or property, and will ruin your credit rating.

A judgment is awarded against you if a lender or debt collector files a civil lawsuit. You should be notified of this court date in the lawsuit, however there are reports of individuals not getting notification. If you do not show up to defend yourself then a judgment is automatically awarded to the lender or debt collector.

How Can I Fight This?

You can fight a judgment and get it off your credit report by filing a dispute with each major credit bureau. Once the bureau finds your dispute to be valid they will investigate the judgment. It is a little-known fact that very rarely do the credit bureaus check public records to verify accounts, this is where your judgment listing would be verified.

Federal law requires the bureaus to remove any item from your credit history that they cannot verify. In other words it shouldn't be too difficult to remove a judgment from your credit file. However if the judgment is verified or you are still having your wages garnished you should negotiate with the collection agency.

Negotiate With Debt Collectors

Collection agencies will often settle your account for much less than the balance due or what they were awarded in a judgment. This is in big reason because the collection agency purchased your debt for a small fraction of the total balance due, and therefore can still be a profitable business by settling for less than the balance due with you.

In exchange for your settlement payment you must get the debt collector to stop reporting your account information to the bureaus. You need to do this because after you make your settlement payment the next step is to dispute this item with the bureaus again. This time when the bureaus investigate the item and ask the collection agency to verify it, the account will not be verified as per your settlement agreement and the item will be removed from your credit history.

A judgment on your credit report is one of the worst items to have, it is just short of a bankruptcy. This mark will likely prevent you from being approved for any future financing at least at any reasonable interest rates. We have heard it causing credit scores to drop by 100 points and more.

In today's economy we are in a brand-new lending era where your credit has never been more important. Many lenders will not approve any applicants with a credit score under 700, a 700 credit score just a few years ago was considered excellent credit.

We have also seen an increase in employers checking job applicants credit record before offering them employment. We fully anticipate this trend to continue and we sincerely hope that a negative item on your credit record doesn't prevent you from getting a well-deserved job offer.

If you have a judgment on your credit history it deserves immediate attention. You can try and handle this yourself or it may be worth considering hiring a professional credit attorney to handle it for you but don't just live with bad credit.

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