Hands-Off Credit Repair

Did you realize your credit has the ability to heal itself? That’s right, credit repair can happen all by itself, with no help from you. You won’t have to pay any money or send any letters. The only thing you have to do is make sure you don’t hurt your credit any further. The catch? It might take few years to happen.

How Does It Work?

The information that’s hurting your credit report has an expiration date. It can only remain on your credit report for a certain amount of time. After that period of time, the negative information drops from your credit report, never to be seen again. Once the negative information is forever gone from your credit report, your credit score will begin to rebound. At this point, all you need to do is add some positive information and your credit score will improve.

How Long Does It Take?

The Fair Credit Reporting Act, FCRA, is a Federal law that dictates how long negative information can appear on your credit report. Most negative information will disappear from your credit report after seven years. The exception is bankruptcy, which can remain on your credit report for up to 10 years.

When Will the Delinquencies Disapper?

The clock starts ticking on the first date of delinquency. If you had a 30-day late payment in June 2005, that remark should drop off your credit report by June 2012. If that account was subsequently charged-off in December 2005 because you never resumed making payments, the account should still drop off your credit report by June 2012. If a debt collector later picks up the account in February 2006, it should still fall off your credit report by June 2012. You see, credit reporting time limit depends on when you were first delinquent on the account.

Let’s say you had a late payment in June 2005, then brought your account current and went late again in September 2005. These are treated as two separate delinquencies and will fall off your credit report at two separate times. The first delinquency will fall off in June 2012 and the second in September 2012.

When negative information falls off your credit report, sometimes the entire account will drop from your credit report. In other cases, only the specific negative information will be removed. If the account was closed in negative standing, the entire account will fall off your credit report. On the other hand, if the account is still open and current, only the specific negative marks will fall off your credit report.

When you order your credit report from TransUnion and Experian, you’ll see a note that says when the negative mark is supposed to fall off your credit report. Your Equifax credit report will only show the date of first delinquency, but you can add seven years (or 10 years in bankruptcy instances) to figure out when the details will disappear from your credit report.

Check your credit report in the next few months after you expect the negative information to fall off your credit report. If the negative information remains, use the credit report dispute process to let the credit bureau know that information is past its credit reporting time limit.

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