Can someone answer or direct me to a resource where an answer would be available to the following two questions: Question #1: All else equal, what has a greater negative impact on the FICO score (a) An old (e.g. 6 years) judgment that has not been sattisfied or (b) An old (e.g. 6 years) judgment that has been sattisified one month ago? Question #2: If a six year old judgment has been sattisfied today, for how many more years will it remain on the credit reprots? Thank you in advance!
Depends on whether the date of payment shows. Typically, it does not for judgments. In addition, judgments don't generally go against utilization. It will stay for tens years after you pay it unless you can get it deleted.
Thank you fro your reply. I am not familiar with the term "utilization" in this context. Can you please explain? Again, juts to confirm - the clock on the ten (seven?) years starts ticking not from the date of the judgement, but from the date it was paid? Thank you
Debt in porportion to avaliable credit. This is scored by both individual tradeline and overall (more heavily the latter). Starts from the date it was paid.
I think you are probably much better off with a 6 year old judgement than a one-month old "judgement satisfied". Both are black marks and the newer it is the worse it is for you. The good news is public records are easier to get deleted off.
But if a judgment isn't paid, in most states it can be renewed. There's more to worry about than reporting. It isn't just going to "go away."
Agreed. I had actually paid the judgemnet off - so there is nothing to be renewed. The reason I was asking the question is that despite the fact that I paid the judgment, the CA have not picked this up. I was asking the question to determine if I'd be better off letting the agencies continue to report the unpaid judgment or have them update their records to reflect the fact that the judgment has indeed been paid. Thank you all for your responses
Thank you for your response. This was my suspicion. Can you please elaborate on your comment regarding deleting pubic records. Thank you!
Most credit tradelines are "pushed" from credit issuers to the credit bureaus. If you dispute a tradeline, the creditor must respond. Public records are different, they are gathered somehow by third party contractors. If you dispute, the court is not going to respond, somebody has to be assigned the task to go and verify the records with the court. Now, if you've ever looked at court records, there is *never* going to be a DOB or SSN visible to the public. So as long as you have a new address or variation of name it's likely it cannot be verified. (more specifically, get the old address at the time of the court filing off your current credit records.) At least that's how I would characterize the process for BK public records. Not sure judgements are the same, depends if they get it from court or creditor. In your case, a 6 year old judgment, I'd let sleeping dogs lie.
Pacer is a system the courts use that have all theit cases and you can sibnup and get case records via the computer.
Re: Pacer Yes, you would think they would just look it up. But if you have a common name (e.g. George Thomas) and you have moved to a new address, and deleted the old address and the accounts that appeared on your BK from your credit report first, it could be pretty tricky to verify. Remember there are no date of birth or Social Security Numbers on Pacer that I know of.
If the judgment was from a lower court (magistrate, small claims, general sessions, etc.) then you won't find it on Pacer which is why the CRA's use third party contractors to troll the courts for info. They also sell the info to other data bureaus btw. I have a friend who does this.
Tax liens can remain 7 years from the date paid - if you never pay them, in theory they will never be removed. Judgments can stay 7 years from date of entry, or for the length of the governing SOL for collection, whichever is longer. Date satisfied (paid) has no bearing on their reporting period.
Right, good point, most of these other court cases aren't available online, making verification more difficult and time consuming.
Well, they aren't easy to remove but, Catleg has thrown some methodology out there that can work. As for the CA, I wouldn't mess with them at this point; i.e., trying to get them to report as paid.
My judgement is from a state district court. I tried to locate the case on PACER - it is not there. PACER seems to provide info on US courts only Question: What information and from whom must the CRA obtain to validate the judgment. How did the CRA get notified of the judgment in the first place? Thanks.
Correct - Pacer only reports federal cases. As Hannah stated above, there are people that are hired to troll the public records at courthouses. The CRA's won't tell you whom the contacted for verification.
