I have been lurking for quite some time and have used the information I have found here to help raise my score enough that now my husband and I are purchasing our first home which closes on June 17th (we were pre-approved for the loan and it has passed first level underwriting). I had several things removed and corrected (boy..my credit was kinda bad but with all the wrong stuff on there it was REALLY bad) by both disputing with the CRAs and the Creditors. Of course some things were easy and some things were not and some things are still unresolved but I am now working on a weekly basis to inch things further (every Wednesday is "credit report" day). Now, going into our house we used a wonderful mortgage broker who really worked with us and really helped us with everything, but unfortunately with credit scored in the mid 600s we could still only qualify for a sub-prime rate (7.47%). So, here is the deal.... My husband and I have long ago realized the errors of our ways with credit and have since only kept 3 credit cards which we pay off monthly and we live almost exlusively on a cash basis for everything else (my car will be paid off in September and I have a current student loan which will be paid off sometime before I die but which is being paid on time and has a relatively low interest rate- fixed 6%). All of our bad credit is from 1999 and none except a few small medical bills when I was out of insurance has accumulated since. My husband and I are hoping to re-fi for a better rate after about 2 years in our new home. In 2 years we should be at that 7 year magical marker for all of our bad credit and while we wish we could spend oodles of time and money paying everything off, that just isn't realistic for a young family with middle income and a small child. So we were hoping that we could really work at making sure that everything that should come off that should (nothing has been validated, etc, and everything is past SOL). I was just wondering what kind of advice everyone may have about making sure that everything comes off that should. I hear that credit companies really try hard to keep everything on there that they can. Thanks in advice for your help and sorry for the long post! ~WOK
If everything is past SOL - is there a reason you don't just start disputing your accounts? One thing you may want to do is keep copies of your credit reports showing the dates of last activity on your accounts. This is the date that determines when your tradelines fall off your report. You want to watch carefully at the 7-7.5 year mark to make sure those accounts are not re-aged(meaning a new date of last activity is added). Be ready to produce thos reports as proof. Also, expect to be threatened by a new crop of scum-sucking CAs who have been notified about your mortgage application. Don't ignore any correspondence about old dbts - even though they are past SOL there's no law (is there? I know some have argued that this constitutes false and misleading statements) saying they can't attempt to collect, and if they sue you and you don't present an affirmative defense they might get a judgement against you. I am a little concerned about your "sub-prime" rate. I don't know what the rest of your situation is, but I can tell you my husbands official score was around 650 and he got a great rate on our recent mortgage with an 80-10-10 mortgage set up. He doesn't have any lates or anything though, just high utilization. I would sniff around and see if you can't get a better rate somewhere before you sign on the dotted line. Mid 600s are pretty standard for most prime mortgages. Do some searches on the site for mortgage rates and scores. Good luck to you Poochie
Thanks so much for your reply! My credit score is actually 670, but my husband is only 630 and since we recently made a cross country move and I had to change employment out of my previous field and for less money they cannot consider me the primary on the loan. We were actually able to go with a slightly better rate if we had gone with a mortgage that offered less (ours offered 1% down which allows us to keep $ in savings so that we are able to ensure that our bills will be paid on time even if we have unforseen events) and no PMI insurane (which would have run us an addiotional $140 a month for 5 years or until we chose to refinance. I am also a little concerned about awakening some sleeping giants, but luckily I am well beyond the SOL for both my preious state and the state I live in so if they did attempt to sue (unlikely since almost 100% have been charged off and while there are several balances owed, almost nothing is over 2K individually, which seems to be somewhat of a marker for whether it is worth their time and effort to sue.... my research has shown anyways...although you always hear about the $100 lawsuit) I should have some level of recourse. Now, on to a question aboiut your response... I have 2 copies of my credit report that are relatively recent (one from the lender and one I ordered from a consumer agency) and of course the copies sent to me from TU and Experian (Equifax never sent me a corrected one...actually they have yet to respond to almost anything, fortunately not much reports with them on my credit). Should I order one from Equifax as proof of the dates or will the consumer tri-merge be enough? Also...on the matter of disputing each line individually... I am affraid that if I stirr them up too much before I let more time lapse that the will be more likely to try to come after me. Of course when I applied for the loan intially (back in Jan) I got a lot of collection letters sent ot my now current address and a lot of "Amnesty" letters and so forth. But nothing more serious (knocking on wood as I type). I'm just afraid that if I go around disputing things that they will get itchy and decide to go forward with a suit (even if they are not legally entitled to). Any ideas? ~WOK
Good lord I can't type these days...lol. I would go back and correct all the errors and misspellings, but I don't have several hours to spend. Sorry for the illiteracy. ~WOK
No sweat - I was a writing major and I can barely get out a complete sentance some days (thanks to two kids! lol) If you are 100% sure you are past SOL don't worry about stirring anything up. Most of them will know you are sol, and most won't pursue a lawsuit if you inform them of such after they contact you. You may have some paperwork hassles as a worst case scenario, but as Jlynn likes to say, they can just go pound sand. HOWEVER - there is an interesting risk here, and that is someitmes removing an old but negative tradeline can actually drop your score, as the age matters more than the negativity. I'm not sure that applies to accounts that have been charged off. I don't know much though, hopefully someone else will have something useful to say. Poochie
I feel relatively certain that I am outside of the SOL. I previously lived in AZ and then moved to FL and all the debt is from 1999, so I should be oustide the SOL on everything. As far as the age affecting the score... I think in this case it is doubtful since I still have about 3 positive trade lines dating back from the same time and these are all collections or charge off accounts... in this case I think it would do better that they be gone. Of course... it is entirely possible that the positive trade lines could go bye bye too since I don't use those credit lines. Maybe I should put something on them and pay them off soon so they stay relatively active. Not to hijack my own thread... but can they even sue once the account has been charged off since it was part of a tax write off? Thanks! ~WOK
Whether or not they charged it off has nothing to do with whether or not they can sue or try to collect through a CA. A writeoff is for accounting purposes, so that it doesn't appear that they have assets (accounts receivable) that they will never collect. If they later collect on it, they take the amount as income and pay the taxes, etc at that time. It has nothing to do with the legality of the debt itself. What does impact their right to collect is the Statute of Limitations (SOL), which varies from state to state and also depends on the type of debt. While they can still try to collect or sue you, once you have passed the SOL, you only have to show up in court and assert that it is past the SOL, and it will be dismissed. So, if it has truly passed the SOL. there is no reason to be afraid of disputing these debts at all.
