I didn't have that much to pay, but enough to knock my score to 662. I applied for a mortgage, and my mortgage guy told me I had to pay off the 3 debts I owed. On my credit report, there were duplicate entries for all these debts. I called a few of the collection agencies (yeah I know I should have written letters etc, but there was no time, I needed to just pay them off- they were my debts. I remember not paying these bills.) I paid the gas company(one of my debts) directly because when I called one of the collection agencies that reported the gas company debt, they said they no longer held the debt. There is also another listing for a different collection agency reporting the gas company debt that reads "closed" on my report. This situation also applies to the other 2 debts I have paid off. One of which I actually had to pay Calvary because the original creditor didn't have any records of the debt since it was sold (and maybe charged off?) The original creditor doesn't report this on my credit report, only the 2 collection agencies. All this being said, how do I: A: Get these paid debts removed by the collection agencies that no longer are "responsible" for handling the debt B: Get these debts either removed or at least marked as paid or settled from the collection agencies that were still "active" to collect the debt. Basically, all is paid now, but I don't know how to approach the next step of removal or having my credit report reflect that the debts have been satisfied ANY help would be most welcome. Thanks
"One of which I actually had to pay Calvary because the original creditor didn't have any records of the debt since it was sold " Did you pay Calvary because they owned the debt and you thought it was legitimately owed by you, or was this a debt you had some doubts about, but they pressured you to pay when you could not obtain any information from the OC? Did Calvary notify you of your right to dispute and request validation, so that you could determine whether the debt was legitimate?
I know I was responsible for the debt. It was long ago, but I remember not paying it. Possibly at one point Calvary sent out letters, but they had long since gave up. I haven't heard from them (if ever) in a very long time. Basically I used to normally throw out ANY collection bill without even opening it. I never had a use for credit until now, which is why my score isn't even that terrible. I do have 3 positive tradelines, and then these 3 unpaid utility bills (which are now paid) But now I am at a point where I must pay this stuff quickly (no time for letters) And am wondering not whether or not I OWED the debt, but what to do now that it is paid.
"But now I am at a point where I must pay this stuff quickly (no time for letters) And am wondering not whether or not I OWED the debt, but what to do now that it is paid." What specifically are you trying to accomplish? Paying owed debts may be required to close on loans such as mortgages, but that is not likely to raise your scores instantly. Check your reported negative accounts to determine if any of them are "obsolete", and being reported more than 7 years after they first went delinquent. They should be off your reports, and you should dispute them thru the CRAs to get them off.
I am doing what my mortgage broker told me to do. Need to do it to close my mortgage Did that. All of them were from the past 7 years. All this being said, do you know what my steps are to have them reported as paid, as well as having the old collection agencies who are no longer "in charge" of the debt remove them?
If you have paid them, but they are not reported as paid, then you could dispute them thru the CRA on which they are being reported incorrectly. As a result of your CRA dispute, the reporting party should be contacted, and should update the report to show paid. If old CAs are reporting debts, that have actually been transferred to a new CA, or have been paid, their accounts should be reporting with $0 balance. If it is not, that is an error, and you should dispute as above. They should either remove, or correct to show $0 balance. If they fail to respond to your dispute thru the CRA within 30 days, the CRA should remove. If they fail to correct, when you can show it is paid, then they may be liable for their erroneous reporting. If this prevents you from getting your mortgage, which could result in substantial damage to you resulting from their error, you might want to contact an attorney to see if he can assist you. If you win in court, under FCRA the court can direct them to pay you both for your damages, and for reasonable attorney's fees. If CAs remove or correct some accounts, you may want to have a rapid rescoring done to produce an updated set of credit scores, if this is likely to affect the terms of your mortgage.
When you are dealing with a mortgage, because of the potential amounts of damages involved, it would pay you to seek out the assistance of an attorney sooner, rather than later, if you have ANY problems. Whether it becomes an issue of having him write a demand letter to prod prompt response from a CA, or proceed to sue on damages if your loan and house purchase fall apart, time and patience is not in your favor. You are always better off pushing agressively for fast corrections rather than letting them doddle and hope you can somehow recover your losses. Just as you depend on other professionals to look after aspects of your interests in the purchase of a home (real estate agent, mortgage broker, title company, home inspector, etc.), it may pay to use the professional expertise of an attorney. Even if you pay some attorney fees, you are balancing several hundred dollars against possibly thousands in lost deposit or future interest payments. What you would be looking for in that case is an attorney practicing in your state with expertise in consumer debt, FDCPA and FCRA litigation. You might search on www.naca.net
All good points in this thread. However, it should be also said that many mortgage lenders will approve an applicant which has up to 5k in delinquent debt regardless of the status. Moreover, the rates are not as bad as one would tend to think. Just as with any thing else, it is often a good idea to look around when shopping for a mortgage (so long as the shopping takes place within a prescribed time frame in terms of inquiries).
Mortgages and mortgage frauds Mortgage fraud is one of America's largest areas where consumers are regularly defrauded today. The racket has many traps for uninformed home buyers and include mortgage flipping, rate jacking, illegal broker fees, and many more. Homes are often deliberately foreclosed on needlessly and on the flimsiest of excuses. This also happens more frequently in some non-judicial foreclosure states than it does in most judicial foreclosure states. In non-judicial foreclosure states the homeowner has few if any defenses to a foreclosure action so lenders often wait until most if not all of the interest has been paid on the note and the homeowner would start to pay off meaningful amounts of the principal and then use any excuse such as a late payment, failure to maintain insurance on the property or whatever they can dream up as an excuse to foreclose, sell the home at a sheriff's sale then buy it back at the sheriff's sale and then resell the home to a new home buyer. When the lender buys the home back at a sheriff's sale it only costs him the foreclosure and sale expenses. That's not much compared to what his profits will be when he sells the home to a new buyer at a much higher price. I know of one lady who owed $2500 on her home which appraised at $50,000 She ran into temporary financial problems and missed a couple of payments and her lender foreclosed. Then she had to bring the loan current, pay the attorney fees, court costs and all other costs including sheriff's sale costs to get her home back. The total came to just over $7500 needed to save her home and she simply didn't have that much money so she let it go to judgment and of course they got a judgment and were moving to the sheriff's sale when she contacted me to see if I could help. I got her a lender but the lender would not lend such a small amount of money and suggested that she do some remodeling or something to the home to help increase it's value and the amount of money she would need. She said that was fine because the home needed a new roof and some other work so the lender wrote the loan and immediately paid off the $7500 and saved her home. Needless to say the lender charged a fairly high rate of interest but gave her the option to refinance again in a year or so provided all her payments were timely during that time. If she does that she can refinance in a year or so and get a much better interest rate saving her a lot of money over the long haul, but the new loan was only about $15,000 so maybe she will refinance and maybe not. I run into a lot of mortgage situations and many problems exist in both judicial and non-judicial foreclosure states. One of them is a problem with a company known as MERS or Mortgage Electronic Registry Systems. They currently service more than 36 million home loans all over the United States but are a very shady outfit to get involved with. They foreclose on hundreds of homes every day but don't actually have the legal right to do so for many reasons. They don't ever loan any money to anyone, never borrow money, never hold any mortgages and are never the actual lien holder on any property. They only act as the assignee on their 36 million homes. Often there is no recording of the assignment either and in order for a company to act as an assignee the assignment has to be recorded at the local county recorder's office within a certain number of days after the assignment has taken place but the lender fails to do that so there is no assignment on record so the assignment is not valid. That also happens quite often when a lender sells the note to a new lender and that places a serious cloud on the mortgage and note. In many states the recording of the assignment to the new lender or assignee must take place within a certain number of days or the new lender or assignee has no right to bring legal action against the homeowner in the event he tries to foreclose and his only recourse is against the previous lender who failed to record the transaction within the time period allotted. Each state has it's own laws about that. MERS has ran into serious problems in Florida courts and those of many other states because of their shady practices. One of the most notable is Pinelas County Florida and now most of Florida where they can't even bring a lawsuit because of their shady practices. In some states courts have serious problems with one corporation representing another corporation in court since corporations must be represented by attorneys and not other corporations. One of the ways that MERS finally gains title to the home is by including the lender who is their client in the lawsuit as one of the defendants. The lender goes along with that because MERS will "sell" the home back to them after the Sheriff's sale or pay them the proceeds of the sale if the home is not bought back by MERS at the sale so the lender loses nothing except the costs of the foreclosure and sale. MERS always has one or more shills at the sale to ensure that the home brings the proper price. Sometimes they end up being the successful bidder. Mortgage flipping gets so bad that it actually depresses home values in many places. Brokers often promise one interest rate and then by the time the buyer gets to the final settlement the rate has been jacked a few points because the broker actually sold the loan to the lender at a higher rate. There are other problems when the broker gets a false appraisal on the home which claims that the home is worth far more than it actually is. This is often done by claiming that improvements or repairs to the home have been made which have not actually been done. Another fraud is claiming that the home is in a flood plain and demanding that the buyer purchase flood insurance when the home is not actually in a flood plain at all. There are also problems with TILA, RESPA, HOEPA and other violations with mortgages and the sale of homes. There are so many tricks and traps in the mortgage industry that buying a home can turn into a real nightmare. Many people who find themselves in a foreclosure situation can find reason to stop the sale of their homes even at the last minute meaning at the final confirmation of sale hearing. There are many ways to stop the final confirmation of sale from happening. Among those might be raising the question of who got sued if both husband and wife were sued but one of them never signed the note or the mortgage and their name did not appear anywhere on the mortgage or note. That often happens if one or the other has bad credit and the other spouse had good credit so was the one who signed the papers. The attorney sues both parties and one is wrongfully joined in the lawsuit. The wrongfully joined spouse jumps in and files motion to vacate and the attorneys will often vacate their own judgment on the spot. If this happens at the confirmation hearing the home is now once again the property of the home owner so they go to the house and drill out the locks and put their own cheap lock and hasp on the door and put up no trespassing signs all over the place taking pictures of the whole process. They also put in a cheap bed, maybe an old microwave and some old dishes and old bedsheets over the windows for curtains. If the lender or the attorneys or anyone breaks the locks and enters the home then the home owner can file a wrongful eviction case on them. Of course, if the new buyer was not the original lender or his assignee the new buyer will usually demand his money back from the sheriff's sale and he will get it. In one case I know of, the home was built on a hill and the entire hill had started to slide down the hill a few inches, street and all. The back wall actually collapsed because of it so the new buyer demanded his money back claiming a car had ran into the house and knocked out the back wall. The attorney vacated his own judgment and the court returned the new buyer's money. The owner who had been foreclosed on immediately drilled out the locks and put a new hasp and lock on the door plus the curtains and other cheap junk to make it look like he had moved back in. They broke his lock off the door and he sued for wrongful eviction. There are companies who look for homes that are in foreclosure and contact the lender to see if the lender would like the home winterized. They drill out the locks, shut off the water and pour anti-freeze in the water heater and send the new keys to the lender, charging a hefty fee for their services and often do that even though the judgment has not even been heard by the courts at the time. The owner comes home to find a sticker on the window which says no trespassing and that the home has been winterized. They are locked out of house and home and sometimes don't even know why. Things can really get interesting when homes go into foreclosure.
