ByClean Up Your Credit Report by Removing Judgment With DoNotPay
Your credit score affects a lot more in your life than you might expect. From buying a house to credit cards to much, much more, having good credit is important. Unfortunately, there are many things that can hold you back in this regard. For example, having a judgment on your credit report is a great way to tank your score. If you'd like to change this, you can get DoNotPay to help draft a sample letter to today.
What Is a Judgment On a Credit Report?
Getting a judgment on your credit report means that you've been successfully sued by a company or other organization for non-payment. Maybe you fell behind on your payments, forgot to pay too many times, or just refused to pay. Regardless of reasons, you're now in a tricky position that could see you needing to pay.
Once a court has rendered a judgment against you, your creditors are going to find a way to get what they're owed. This could mean garnished wages, a lien on property, or something else entirely. Judgments may also follow you on your credit report depending on when they were rendered against you. While a 2017 ruling made it so judgments are no longer part of the standard credit report, older reports would still include this information.
How to Dispute a Judgment on a Credit Report
Because of the 2017 ruling, your judgments should not be a part of your credit report. If they are, it's an error on the part of the credit agencies. Requesting it be removed is your right, and they should respond within 30 days of you contacting them. This should get a judgment removed from your report if done correctly, but reversing or removing the judgment entirely is a different matter altogether.
Disputing a judgment can be difficult. In many cases, you may not have any ground to stand on when appealing a judgment, especially after it's been decided. However, it might be the best option you have for fixing your credit. If that's the case, there are a few options for disputing what's on your credit report. Outside of simply paying off your debt, there are a few options you can try.
If the debt you've been judged on wasn't actually yours to begin with, you have a pretty solid case for getting that judgment reversed. This happens from time to time, either as a result of fraud or because of a mixup with creditors. It's best to act quickly either way since the longer that debt is considered yours, the worst things can get.
Since a judgment only happens as a result of a lawsuit, you would need to appear in court to defend yourself prior to one taking effect. If you never received a correspondence telling you to appear in court, though, you would have an opportunity for a retrial. Sometimes things get lost in the mail or sent to the wrong location, so if that's the case for you, that puts you in a good position to fight back.
It's also possible to argue that you can't pay back your debts following a judgment because you lack the necessary money or assets to do so. If you happen to be "judgment proof" in this way, you won't need to pay back your debts provided you don't gain significant assets before the statute of limitations expires. Be aware that this does not remove the judgment from your history, though.
How to Remove Judgments On Your Own
While removing judgments from your credit report should be easy, it can still be a major hassle. Despite the fact that they should no longer appear on your report, there are still plenty of cases where they do, and the people doing it want to make it as annoying as possible to get them taken off. If you don't want to deal with the hassle on your own, let DoNotPay handle it for you.
To handle it yourself, though, you can try these methods:
| By mail |
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| By phone |
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Remove Judgments From Your Credit Report With DoNotPay
If you're still trying to remove a judgment from your credit report but haven't had luck doing it yourself, DoNotPay could be the answer. All you have to do is follow these simple steps to get the ball rolling:
- Search Clean Credit Report on DoNotPay.
- Prepare a recent copy of your credit report that you can use as reference.
- Let us guide you through the 4 potential options:
- If you've already paid off your debt, we'll help you file a Goodwill Removal Request to get it removed.
- If you notice any errors in your report (we have a list of common errors you can use!), we'll help you file a credit dispute to the creditor or major credit bureaus.
- If there are no errors, we'll check if you're still eligible to file a debt validation request. If they can't validate your debt, they're required to remove it from your report and they can't collect it!
- Lastly, if none of the above options work, we'll help you file a pay-to-delete negotiation letter. You can customize the amount you are willing to pay in exchange for getting the item removed.
You can also check out our other credit products, including Credit Limit Increase, Get My Credit Report, Keep Unused Cards Active, and more!
DoNotPay Can Help In Multiple Areas to Clean Up Your Credit Report
If you need to dispute any part of your credit report, DoNotPay can help you with that. Removing a judgment is one thing, but did you know we can also help remove collections, too? We can also get late payments and inquiries taken off so they don't affect your score. Overall, we have multiple avenues for helping to improve your credit score.
What Else Can DoNotPay Do?
Cleaning up your credit report isn't all DoNotPay can do for you. Look at these other credit score related issues you can navigate using DoNotPay:
- Learn how to improve credit scores
- Learn how to dispute credit reports
- Learn more about debt validation letters
- Learn how to remove debt collections from a credit report
- Learn about credit dispute letters
- Learn how to remove late payments from credit reports
- Learn how to fix credit scores
- Learn how to remove inquiries from credit reports
Our app provides a ton of different services that you might find useful. Aside from credit-related issues, here are a few examples of other things we can help you with:
- Cancel old services you no longer need.
- Write financial aid appeal letters.
- Help pay bills automatically.
No matter what you might need to do in life, DoNotPay is here to help. Start simplifying life by letting us handle the most tedious bits for you by joining today.