Civil Judgments - How to Remove From Your Credit Report

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.

A judgment will drastically reduce your credit score. Be aware that paying a judgment will not remove it from your credit report.

When a judgment is paid it changes the listing to satisfied judgment. A satisfied judgment is still a derogatory listing and will still hurt your credit score.

To remove a judgment from your credit report you should dispute the judgment. This means you are disputing the validity or accuracy 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 the judgment is not verified then it must be removed by the credit bureaus. It has been found that when negative listings are disputed they are often removed.

This happens because it costs the debt collectors money to verify a listing. Typically debt collectors do not want to spend money verifying listings.

It will be difficult to get the credit bureaus to actually conduct an investigation into your dispute. This is because it costs the credit bureaus money to conduct investigations.

This is the reason why credit repair services are often hired to dispute listings on behalf on an individual.