There aren’t many ways to remove judgments from credit. Avoiding having a judgment ruled against you and then placed on your credit is probably the best thing you can do. Contacting the debtor first is always a good idea, to see if they can come to a payment arrangement with you and to remove the ruling before it goes tot he courts.
A judgment can stay on your credit report from 12 to 20 years. They can also be renewed, but only if the creditor wants to do a re-filing. The best way to avoid this is to pay the judgment in a timely manner. There are still some steps you can take to help once the judgment has been filed on your report:
First, the statute of limitations is a good place to start. The statute of limitations is the amount of time a creditor has to sue you and initiate any legal proceedings. Most states have a statute of anywhere from four to six years. If the term of the statutes has passed already, you have a good chance of disputing the judgment and winning.
After that you have thirty days for it to be reported and have the courts decide on the validity of it. After thirty days, if no conclusion has been made, it will be deleted by the credit bureau. The debt is then considered not valid and you will not have an obligation to pay it.
However, if it’s still considered to be valid, you can always try and talk to the creditor and see if they’ll dismiss the judgment for you. If you come to a payment arrangement, the creditor could dismiss the case and it would be stamped as legally void in the court and credit system.
After you’ve paid the judgment off, it’s called a satisfied judgment. Once that happens, it stays on for seven years. Take note that this starts on the date the debt is paid off, and not before. Once the judgment is ruled and put in as public record, there’s not many steps you can take to remove it.
Another thing to do when you’re trying to remove judgments from credit is to talk to a credit lawyer. They can do the footwork and they know enough legal loopholes to make sure you’re covered. If they can’t get the judgment removed, at the very least they can help get your credit back in order.
There’s no way to remove a public record entry once it hits your credit unless it’s on a technicality. Watch out for credit repair companies, who say they can remove a judgment and then will only charge you large sums of money and not end up getting the judgment removed, causing you to waste money!
In the end when you’ve done all you can to remove judgments from credit is to pay it off, and let the seven years pass. Meanwhile, try to make sure you pay all your bills on time and watch your credit report for any alerts. Maintain a good credit history and by the time the judgment comes off your credit score should improve considerably.
