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When you see a civil judgment on your credit report it means that a creditor has sued you for payment of a debt. It is a legal hearing that gives the debt collector an extended amount of time to collect the debt.
A judgment gives the debt collector up to 20 years to collect on a debt. This is beyond the 7 year statue of limitations that applies to most debts. Often judgments are granted on unsecured debts. It has become common for debt collectors to renew their judgments against the debtor. This will give the debt collector another 20 years to try and recover payment on the debt. Judgments will hurt your credit score. You should also know that if you pay a judgment it will not be deleted from your credit report. When you pay a judgment the listing will change to a satisfied judgment. This is still a negative mark and will hurt your credit score. The most effective way or removing judgments is done by disputing the judgment. This means you are challenging the accuracy or validity of the judgment. You dispute the judgment directly with the credit bureaus. This is done by writing a dispute letter to the credit bureaus. If a judgment is not verified as accurate it must be deleted by the credit bureaus. Often when listings are disputed they are removed regardless of their accuracy. The listing will be removed because it costs the debt collectors money to verify the accuracy of a listing. Frequently debt collectors don't want to spend the money to verify a listing. However you will have trouble getting the credit bureaus to investigate the listing. This is because it costs the credit bureaus potential profits to investigate listings. This is why some people have hired professional credit repair companies to dispute negative listings on their behalf. |
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