Credit Repair

Credit Repair and Judgments

Judgments fall into a special category of credit repair. A judgment is the final result of a legal action and is thereafter entered into public records as such. Here are a few interesting points about judgments that might be useful to your credit repair effort.

Unpaid judgments can continue to report for seven years from the filing date, or the statute of limitation, whichever is longer. Statutes of limitation are state specific, so if you want to know how long a judgment may linger on your credit report you will need to research it (if you are in our credit repair program we will do this for you). Generally statutes of limitation on judgments are quite long and often include renewal terms.

Paid judgments are different and get very special treatment. A paid judgment can only report for seven years beyond its filing date. This may be a great credit repair blessing. If a judgment was filed seven or more years ago, paying it off will have the effect of causing it to be removed immediately! Depending on the dollar amount this may be worth considering.

There is another credit repair tool that can be used to remove a judgment from your credit report called a set aside letter. A set aside letter is a motion to have a court’s judgment overturned. Unless you have an airtight case and plan on hiring an attorney, there is no likelihood of successfully managing this without cooperation from the plaintiff. But if you can entice the plaintiff to sign the motion indicating that there was a material error involved it can be done.

This credit repair technique is a bit complicated and its success is predicated on the willingness of the plaintiff to give you the benefit of the doubt regarding the original legitimacy of the case. Even with the willing participation of the plaintiff you would be advised to have an attorney assist you with this process.