Home Buddies – Home Ownership Coach – Houston, Texas

How to Remove Credit Judgments to Improve Your Credit Score

If you have any credit judgments on your credit report, removing them is a great way to increase your credit worthiness, as well as improve your credit score.

If you have unsettled debts just sitting there on your report for too long, then you are increasing the risk of the creditor taking you to court to get a credit judgment. Credit judgments are a court order that demands payment from you on a contract or obligation you made. A credit judgment is the “ultimate validation” of your owed debt because a judge has usually reviewed documentation and has ruled that the debt is in fact valid.

One of the other major drawbacks of having any credit judgments is that it can be nearly impossible to get extensions of credit with unpaid credit judgments on your credit reports ; especially if you are trying to get a mortgage for a home, since a credit judgment can attach itself to your real property.

There are a few ways to remove credit judgments:

1. File a Motion to Vacate

If this is what you choose, you will need to do find out about court procedures in your area. However, understand that if the courts grants your vacate request the credit judgment should be removed from your credit report immediately.

2. Check for the Statute of Limitations for your State. In Texas, the statute of limitation on judgments is 10 years, but can be renewed within 2 years after expiration. Maximum interest rate on judgment is 8.25% which is lower than previous 10%.

Judgments will usually stay on your credit report for 7 years; however they can remain collectible for 20 years. Once the 20 year period is up, it is pretty easy to get an extension if the judgment is open and has not yet been collected on.

If the statute of limitations has been exceeded (as per your state’s limits) then you can dispute the credit judgment as “obsolete” with the credit bureaus. This will remove the credit judgments that are past your state’s statute of limitations.

3. Negotiate for Removal

Another way to remove credit judgments is to negotiate with the creditor that the judgment is open with. You need to try to get them to dismiss (remove it completely from your credit report) the credit judgment by paying it in full. This is much better than just paying it off because the credit judgment will just be updated on your credit report as “paid” and it will still show on your credit report.

Good luck.
Barbara Partaka