Category: Bad Credit

What is a Tax Lien?

A tax lien can show up on your credit report if you happen to pay the incorrect amount of taxes or fail to pay income or property taxes to Uncle Sam.  Or in other words, if you don’t pay your taxes or pay a deficient amount that you owed you can have a tax lien imposed upon you that will be displayed like a red flag on your credit report.

If you own lots of real estate, or other valuable properties make sure to keep a close eye on the amount of taxes you have to pay each year, that way there are no discrepancies or issues in the future.

How a Tax Lien can  affect your credit situation

To put it gently, tax liens are severely ravaging to your credit reports.  Even if you pay amount owed on the lien, it can stay on your credit reports up to 7 years from the date that you paid off the lien, not the date that the tax lien was filed.  So if you are considering paying off the tax lien at a later date that is something very important to consider.

The entry get’s re – activated or re – flagged from the date of which it was last altered.  Talk about getting punished for doing the right thing!

Removing a Tax Lien on your own

You can attempt to challenge a tax lien; however, to successfully remove a tax lien you have to dispute the accuracy of the tax lien itself.  If the lien was clearly a mistake and meets the criteria of being misleading, innaccurate or unverifable then you will have a decent shot at getting the entry successfully erased.

If you can determine that the tax lien is not accurate, the next step to take it to send a letter to the IRS asking to verify the debt.  If the IRS finds the debt verifiable then you are obligated to pay it.  However, if the tax lien is not verifiable, then the lien will be erased.

If the tax lien is verified then disputing it for removal will become more difficult.  The reasoning as to why it was not sufficiently paid when it was meant to be can be used as ingredients for a dispute letter.  If you are the person responsible was not in a proper state to be able to make the payment, such as getting injured and living in a hospital for a month, then there may be a chance that the bureaus will release the accounts from your reports.

More often though, to successfully remove a verified debt you will have to have a background knowledge in the credit industry so you can leverage the consumer protection laws in your favor.  Self education is the next step, but it is time consuming despite its benefits.

A smoother and perhaps smarter, choice

The good news is that there are other options to remove tax liens.  Countless individuals in this situation have employed a credit repair service like Lexington Law.

Lexington Law has deleted millions of negative credit items like tax liens and has improved many credit scores astronomically.  To speak with a credit expert, simply fill out the form below and you a paralegal from Lexington will followup with you for a free no obligation credit consultation.

What is a Repossession?

A repossession takes place when a financial institution retrieves an object (typically a car) that was used in a transaction as collateral for the type of service provided, which is typically a loan.

In other words, the person or institution that has the right of ownership retrieves their property if the person paying for the property is insolvent.

Insolvency is never exciting, but as the economy would have it, more and more consumers are struggling to stay on top of their credit obligations.

How a Repossession affects your credit score

The most basic answer is, a repossession on your credit reports will have a terrible impact and will drop  your credit score down quite a few points.  Having one of these on your reports is trouble because it increases your credit risk and lowers the chance of being approved for any new type of credit.  Not to mention, if it was an auto repo, then you lost your new car!

A Repossession will likely stay on your credit report for up to 7 to 10 years.  The 7 years figure is referring to the repossession being listed on your credit reports and the 10 years is referring to public records. You can slowly build up your credit again, but if you are reading this then you likely do not want to sit around and wait!

Removing a Repossession by yourself

Understand that it is completely possible to remove a repo entry from your credit reports all by yourself.  The probablity of you being able to do it by yourself will depend on your unique situation.  If your repo is misleading, innaccurate, or unverifable then you have a decent shot of getting  removed by submitting a dispute letter to each of the three bureaus.

If your repo was recent, or if it is accurate then you will have to engage the bureaus at a different angle.  No one in their right mind tries to get a repo on purpose, so the circumstances that led to your car or object being retrieved will have to fuel your dispute letter.  Leveraging this aspect and applying towards a consumer protection law to hopefully get the item removed is where the task becomes challenging.

In order create this type of case for yourself and apply the laws successfully you will have to bridge your gaps in the credit field and educate yourself.  Although this a great thing to do, most consumers do not have the time.

A different, swifter solution

Other consumers who desired assistance in fixing their credit have turned to the trusted lead in credit report repair.  Lexington Law is one of the most Renowned credit repair firms in the United States and have assisted over 500,000 clients erased negative items.

Erasing repossessions and improving credit scores is they’re style!  If you would like to speak with a credit expert, simply fill in the fields in the form below and a Lexington paralegal will follow up with you for a free, no obligation credit consultation.

 

The side effects of a Late Payment on your credit

Having a late payment account on your credit report can be very damaging to your credit score.  There are a few different categories that late payments fall into, based on how late the actual payments were.

If you have a late payment account on your credit report that that is 30 – 60 days late, it can easily decrease over one – hundred points. If the late payment was made 90 – 120 days after, your score will take an even bigger dive.

If the late payment was recent in relation to your overall payment history it will impact your score on a much more significant level.  If the late payment was marked on the account at a much earlier date in time, it will not have as bad of an effect on your overall credit score.

Smaller and limited late payments, can often times be challenged for release by talking directly to the creditor using creditor-direct interventions which are essentially good-natured requests to release the late payment listings.

Disputing a Late Payment by yourself

If the late payment is clearly inaccurate, misleading, or unverifiable the credit bureaus will likely erased it if you send them a dispute letter.  Within the letter make sure to be as specific as possible targeted towards the items you believe are not accurate or is an error.

If the late payment was not an error, but was caused due to special circumstances, for example being in a hospital and unable to attend to your bills, then you will have to take a different approach.  So long as  you can compile a solid case for yourself regarding why the payment was made late, then you have a reasonable chance getting the late payment further investigated.

Taking this route requires a little bit of credit know – how, so you may have to educate yourself to bridge the gaps, depending on how familiar you are with dispute process.  Enhancing your credit education is beneficial but it also can be time consuming and difficult to understand.

With that being said, this method is not for everyone and can actually prove to me more stressful than it’s worth because it is entirely your responsibility to get the negative account removed and this requires you to have a lot of patience and tolerance for people who are not necessarily in the mood to cut you some slack.

A more simplistic approach to removing your late payment

Fortunately, there is a viable alternative option to dealing with the creditor or agency all by yourself.  Most individuals who have been in this position have found that paying for a credit repair service is a much better option.

Lexington law has one of the most renowned credit repair services in the United States.  They have helped millions of clients remove negative credit listings and have improved a countless number of credit scores.  If you would like to speak with a professional paralegal form the Lexington Law firm, simply fill out the form below and a designated paralegal will contact you for a free, no obligation credit consultation.

What is a Judgment?

A judgment is an official decision that has been made after the conclusion of a lawsuit.  Or in other words, it is essentially the verdict or ending result of a court case that will have an impact on your current financial status.  If you have an unresolved debt that has not been paid, chances are that you can have a judgment filed against you with a long and stressfull court case on your hands.

How a Judgment affects your credit score

The short answer is that judgments can devastate your credit score.  This time of negative item can remain on your credit reports for up to 7 years.This negative listing also demonstrates to credit lenders a sense of untrustworthiness and irresponsibility which increases your chances of not getting approved for a new line of credit.

Removing a Judgment by yourself

A long and drawn out adventure with credit bureaus, phone calls and letters awaits the consumer who decides to fix their credit.  It’s just the nature of the beast, it’s not meant to be simply because processing credit disputes costs lots of time and money for the credit reporting agencies!

All hope is not lost though!  You can in fact, remove the items in question all by yourself.  The problem is that it can be very time consuming and if you don’t have a grasp of how the consumer protection laws operate then you may have to fill in that gap by educating yourself.

Credit reporting agencies receive thousands of debt validation or dispute notification papers every day.  So often times, while panning through these papers, your case against the items your are disputing has to be clear and the items have to meet the criteria of being misleading, innaccurate or unverifiable.  If one of those qualifications is met than you have a good shot of getting the item erased.

However, there are more implications in the dispute process that are involved that include the position or angle (reason) justifying your dispute. The reason has to relate to the consumer protections laws in some cases which makes the process more difficult because the bureaus can mark your letter as frivioulous.  Which means that they are not going to conduct an investigation for you, in short.

A more convenient way to erase your judgment  

Luckily, there is viable alternative option out there.  Countless individuals faced with judgments against them threatening their credit reports have turned to employing a paid credit repair service like Lexington Law.

Lexington Law is one of the most renowned credit repair firms in the United States.  They have helped millions of people delete negative items like judgments off of their reports and improved their credit scores astronomically.  If you would like to speak with a paralegal from Lexington Law today, feel free to fill out the information in the form below and they will follow up you for a free, no obligation credit consultation.

 

What is a Garnishment?

A garnishment occurs when you have an unpaid debt that should have been paid.  Money is collected from you wages and applied to the unpaid debt without the person’s approval.  Garnishments can be declared by a judge or sent directly from IRS.  Normally, garnishments are used as a last resort scare ploy to retrieve the money owed by the individual.

There is a cap on the amount of money a creditor can collect, which is 25% of the person’s paycheck after taxes.  The judgment filed against you that sparked the garnishment of your wages will remain on your credit report for up to 7 years.

How a Garnishment affects your credit

To put it plainly, having a garnishment listing on your credit reports can be very damaging to your credit score.If you are currently in the process of paying back the debt you owe via the garnishing of your wages, then you will not be able to try and remove the garnishment listing on your credit report.  If you have since paid your debt back and no longer are having your wages garnished you can get the garnishment listing removed.

Removing a Garnishment listing from your credit

Trying to remove the garnishment listing yourself requires a lot of tolerance and patience because the credit agencies are not going to be sympathetic about your negative credit account.  The dispute process is tedious, but it can result in you successfully removing the item in question.  Garnishments are tricky because they are court ruled and therefore are valid so they can not be subject to any type of validation letter.

But don’t fret, it is likely that you still have some wiggle room to form a decent case.  The fact that the credit bureaus spend tons of time and money on investigating cases can also help your situation rule in your favor.  The key is finding little dots and connecting them together to form a case that has grounds.

If you can accomplish this then you will have a good shot at getting the credit deleted.  You can also try to call the bureau’s and try to get the garnishment released, however this method normally requires you to know how the laws can work for you.

A swifter approach to erasing the garnishment

Luckily, there is another feasible option to remove the garnishment account off your report.  Millions of individuals in these types of situations employ a credit repair service to help get the negative credit listing that is damaging their credit score’s removed.

Lexington Law is one of the most renowned credit repair firms in the United States and have helped millions of clients remove negative credit listings from their credit reports and have improved millions of credit scores.  If you would like to speak with a professional paralegal today, simply fill in the form below for a free, no obligation credit consultation.

 

What is a Foreclosure?

A foreclosure can occur if you are unable to pay your mortgage that you were extended through a bank or financial institution.  During the foreclosing process the financial institution who leased the mortgage will repossess the house to try and pay off the debt that is owed.

If the institution is unsuccessful in doing this, they will likely write the expense as a charge off on their taxes.  This unpaid debt will likely be sold by the institution to a collection agency.  The collection agency can then attempt to recover the debt in full or partiality from the person responsible for not making the mortgage payments.

How a Foreclosure impacts your credit score

Regardless of weather the debt is paid or unpaid by the person responsible; a foreclosure will remain on the credit report for up to 7 – 10 years and will absolutely crush your credit score.  The 7 years refers to the credit reports and the 10 years refers to public record listings.

Contacting the creditor directly to try and remove the foreclosure from your credit report will be very, very difficult.  Since foreclosures are a very serious negative credit allegation, creditors are highly unlikely to consider removing a foreclosure from your public credit report records.

With that being said, all hope is not lost.  The present state of the economy has caused major havoc and has the job market has suffered because of it.  The economy could be just one reason why the foreclousure ever happened.  Divorce, death and other serious events that happen are all shades of grey that are sprinkled into this equation that resulted in the foreclosure.

The consumer who undergoes a foreclousre is liable for what happened, however, when trying to get your credit life square again by challenging the information on your reports it can be very tricky to get it erased.

Understanding the consumer protection laws is the first step in being able to leverage a letter to send to the bureaus for their consideration in removing the item.  The problem is this time consuming and a difficult plan to implement.

A smoother, and simpler credit solution

The best course of action you can take in removing a foreclosure listing, is to contact a credit repair service because they understand how the credit and legal system function.

Lexington Law has helped millions of people remove negative credit accounts from their credit reports including foreclosures and has improved millions of credit scores in the United States.

If you are interesed in a free, no obligation credit consultation, simply fill out the form below and a paralegal from Lexington will follow up with you.

What is a Collection Account?

Collection accounts are the result of having a debt charged off (bought off) from the current creditor that you owe the money too, to a collection agency.  For example, if you owed money to a company or agency and you were not able to pay back the debt that you owed, collection agencies will buy your debt from the company.

How a Collection Account affects your credit score

From here, they will either try and get you to pay the entire debt back or a portion of it and if they are unable to do this they will take the necessary steps to absolutely trash your credit score.  On average, one collection account listed on your credit report can bring down your score 20 – 60 points.

Reconciling your Collection Account Yourself

Having the collection agencies calling you up and giving you grief for your past due debts is already stressful, but trying to negotiate with them so that they will not list collection accounts on your credit reports is a whole different beast.

One way that is usually less time intensive, is to try and put up with the agency, and to form a written agreement.  If a written compromise is formed then you may be able to save your credit from the debt agency.  If the agency is unwilling to settle for this, then your best bet is to send them a letter stating that you wish to recieve all future correspondance in writing only, to stop the phone calls.

The next step, if the collection account is an error, mistake or misleading is to send a debt dispute letter to the credit bureaus.  The agencies will then respond back and hopefully, open up a credit case for you.

Challenging a collection account is not the most pleasurable experience because the process is really drawn out and it takes along time to get any results.  If you have challenged a collection agency in the past regarding a collection account then you likely are already aware of this.

Finding a quicker solution

Collection agencies in short, care about profits and normally will not succumb to the idea of removing a negative listing off of your public credit report records, unless the price is right.  Essentially, you have to buy your way out of it and it is not a cheap expense to say the very least.

Countless individuals who have been in these circumstances have found that it is much easier employ a professional credit repair service than to try and handle the collection agencies themselves.

One company most consumers have chosen is Lexington Law because it is one of the most established credit repair services in the United States and they have an amazing track record in dealing with collection agencies and they can get the negative listings removed.  If you would like to sign up for a free, no obligation credit consultation please feel free to fill out the form below and a paralegal from lexington law will follow up with you.

A civil claim forms on your credit report when you are sued in court by a creditor for payment towards a debt that is not paid.

A legal hearing takes place and the debt collector is given an assigned amount of time to retrieve the owed debt.

The collector has the ability to extend to amount of time associated with collecting the debt.

Civil cases are already stressful, because you have to show up to court and try explain why you were not able to pay the loan or credit borrowed.  The problem is that life happens.

The economy is down and the job market is bleak.

Those are two basic facts, and they account for alot of the bad credit on the majority of consumers reports and the consumer ends up struggling even more because re – employment becomes difficult, due to the bad credit.

How a Civil Claim affects your credit  

To put it plainly, Civil claims are devastating to your credit report.  If you pay the debt off the civil claim on your credit report will still remain on it with all of the harmful effects, only the payment status will change of the debt itself will be updated to “paid”.

Removing a Civil Claim Yourself 

Getting rid of a civil claim listing on your reports involves sending a letter to the bureaus in which you are disputing the item.  You can challenge the validity of the debts themselves if you feel they are a misleading, or if they are clearly a mistake.

If you are responsible for the debt and it was placed on your credit report then the debt validation method will likely not prevail.  But don’t worry, like most people suffering from bad credit, usually a consumers’ credit went bad because of unfortunate circumstances.  Most people don’t strive to get civil claims and other types of bad credit listed on their reports, it’s clearly a mishap and mistake.

With that being said there are more advanced methods to approach a credit inquiry removal that falls into that category. Furthermore, credit inquiries that are not legitimate can be removed by you, the consumer successfully.

The problem is the amount of time the dispute process takes.  The credit bureaus recieve thousands of letters like this every single day, and they have a team that pans through the letters to acknowledge which ones have grounds towards their claims, to put it loosely.  Dispute letters can be deemed frivilious or in other words “obviously not serious”.

A simpler solution, for most

The good news is you do not have to battle against the bureaus all by yourself.  Many individuals in fighting with civil claims on their credit reports have turned to a professional credit repair service, more specifically, Lexington Law.

Lexington Law is one of the most reputable credit repair firms in the United States and has helped delete millions of negative credit items off of credit reports to date.  If you would like to speak with a paralegal for a free, no obligation credit consultation about your situation, simply fill out the form below and they will follow up with you!

When a creditor gives up on obtaining the debt that is owed to them, they will normally list the item as a “charge off” which is essentially a loss in profits and a tax write off.

For example, if you owe a debt to a creditor and you don’t pay the debt back, the creditor will mark it as a charge off when they file their quarterly taxes.

Most of the time collection agencies will buy these debts, also know as charged off debts, and pursue the consumer responsible for paying the debt.

Charge off’s can have a very devastating impact on your credit score.

How a Charge Off affects your credit score

Disputing a charge off account can be very difficult and often times very stressful for the individual doing the disputing.  The collection agencies that buy off the debt (charge off) do not have a sympathetic nature in any respect for individuals with a negative charge off listing on their report.

If collection agencies are not able to collect any of the debt in full or partiality, they will make your credit score rating dissolve to essentially nothing.   If you do pay off the collection debt, then your credit score will still be negatively impacted, so the best action to take is essentially getting the charge off removed from your credit report for good.

Disputing a charge off on your credit by yourself

Disputing a charge off from your credit and getting it successfully removed is very possible.  How probable it is, depends on your situation.  Most charge offs are the results of that person going through a tough time or financial struggle, so naturally, their are lots of grey areas when discussing why bad credit exists on a persons reports.

Filing a debt validation, or debt dispute letter (same thing) involves the consumer writing a formal written request to each of the three main bureaus TransUnion, Experian and Equifax.  Upon receiving this request, bear in mind these agencies recieve thousands of these on a daily basis, the bureau will decide weather or not your case is legitimate enough to move forward and further investigate the credit items.

The problem for the consumer becomes the time frame in which this process follows.  To put it plain and simple, this process takes a few months at best and a large amount of the time the consumer does not end up getting the entries successfully erased.

A simple alternative, and credit solution

Many consumers who try to take care of the mess themselves, will end up turning to professional help to get the results they need for their credit reports.

One of the leading credit repair firms, Lexington law has helped many frusterated consumers remove negative credit and improve their credit scores very effectively.

If you would like to skip ahead of the game and simply sumbit your information into the form below and a paralegal from Lexington will call you for a free no obligation credit consultation.

Two Main Types of Bankruptcies 

When a person is unable to pay back a debt owed to a creditor they can decide to declare bankruptcy.  Declaring a bankruptcy allows you to receive federal protection from creditors as a result of your inability to pay back the debt that you have accumulated.  This decision should be the last resort because it will stay on your credit report for 7 – 10 years and it will destroy your credit score.

Chapter 7 Bankruptcy

This type of bankruptcy erases all responsbilites of the debts that the consumer was not able to attend to.  If your current income is below the state median you live then you have a better chance of being elligble for this type of bankruptcy filing.   All of your assets that are non exempt, or in other words not liable to liquidated, are then then confinscated and sold in order to pay back each of the creditors a portion of the proceeds.

Chapter 13 Bankrupcty

This plan allows the consumer to pay back their debts under a re – payment plan set up by the court and/or government.  The consumer’s income is garnished and the funds are relayed to each of the creditors.  Or in other words, a portion, or percent of each paycheck is withdrawn automatically and sent to the creditors.

Each type bankruptcy filing with significant harmful effects on your credit score.  A bankruptcy listing is normally cleared from your credit reports after 7 years, but public records normally stores this information for 10 years.

Hypothetically, even if you were able to remove the bankruptcy listing itself, any other accounts included under the bankruptcy (results of bankruptcy) will still be listed on your credit reports as “included in bankruptcy” items.  Items listed in reference to a declared bankruptcy are just as bad as a bankruptcy listing itself.

Due to the inconsistencies of credit reporting bureaus and the public records retrieval systems, it is not uncommon for public records to “lose” or fail to retrieve the bankruptcy listing on your credit report.  The problem lies in the separate accounts associated with the bankruptcy declaration itself.

Trying to challenge these bankruptcy items your self can be a very dissatisfying experience.  If you so happen to be very patient and tolerant then you can attempt to remove the negative account listings yourself, but even then it is likely that your efforts may not product the results you are looking for.

Why is it so difficult to remove a bankruptcy?  

First of all, bankruptcies are easily one of the worst types of bad credit for obvious reasons.  The dispute process involved with getting this item removed requires the consumer to write a letter to each fo the credit bureaus the bad credit is listed on.  You can send a debt validation letter and open up a credit case investigation.

This method is time consuming and if you don’t have an angle, or reason, for the bureaus to dispute a debt thats hurting your report the chances of succeeding in the removal are slim.  To make things more challenging, the consumer credit laws are not easy easy to understand, plain and simply said.

There is a proven and easier solution.

Fortunately, there is a fresh way to attack the bankruptcy listings polluting your credit report.  Countless individuals in this type of circumstance have found success in removing bankruptcy listings my employing a paid credit repair service.

Lexington Law is one of the most renowned credit repair firms in the United States.  They have helped millions of people remove negative accounts from their reports and have improved millions of credit scores.