Credit repair??
Can my credit be repaired, after a late mortgage payment?? Do those repair companies really work?
Public Comments
- If you only have one late mortgage payment there is nothing to repair or worry about. The "repair" companies are unethical. If you did pay your mortgage late then let it be. You made the decision so stick with the consequences.
- If you really want to repair your credit as badly as you say you do, then the first step is to avoid credit repair services. They don't do anything anymore special than you can do on your own.The first thing that you need to know that knowledge is power. In order to fix your credit, you should know how your credit is scored and how it affects you 1. Payment history- 35% 2. Total debt owed to avialable credit ratio-30% 3. Length of time establishing credit-15% 4. Types of credit established-10% 5. Inquiries and New accounts-10% With that said, there's 2 things when it comes to bad debts and collection items that you should be aware of, the FCRA and statute of limitations. These are 2 diffferent things. The FCRA(Fair Credit Reporting Act) is the timeframe that negative items can remain on your report which is 7½ years from the date it first went deliquent. For example if a debt first became delinquent July 10, 2000 the legal limit that the debt can be reported would be January 10, 2008. Here's a link for the FCRA: http://creditinfocenter.com/creditreports/cr_time.shtml Also, there is a seperate statute of limitations that varies by state on how long a debt can be legally enforced. This is different from the FCRA, because depending on which state you live in the statute may or may not expire before the FCRA. here's a link for that http://www.creditinfocenter.com/rebuild/statuteLimitations.shtml Another important thing to know is that negative items that are less than 2 years old are hurting your score the most. It's possible that you can settle much older debts for far less in exchange for getting them removed from your report altogether. This is called a "pay to delete". I posted several links explaining this in detail http://www.creditinfocenter.com/debt/settle_debts.shtml http://www.creditinfocenter.com/debt/neg_rating_after_settle.shtml http://www.creditinfocenter.com/debt/CanCreditorSue4SettlementDifferences.shtml http://www.creditinfocenter.com/debt/ActualDebtSuccesses.shtml http://www.creditinfocenter.com/debt/debt-negotiation.php You really don't need to hire a company to try to do something that you can do yourself. Yes, one late payment will affect your score, but if that's the only time that you've been late, you may be able to send them a "goodwill letter" explaining what happened, and whether they may reverse the late payment. There's sites like the one I posted along with a few more than can help you repair your credit cheaper and easier than you would if you paid out of the pocket.
- If there were a quick fix, everybody would do it and credit reports would be worthless. A credit repair company can't legally do anything that you can't do yourself, namely dispute errors. Your credit can be messed up by abusive tactics employed by some companies.
- If something on your credit report is inaccurate, you can dispute it on your own. If it's accurate but unflattering, it can't be disputed. The only thing these "repair companies" can legally do is file appeals on your creditors, so that the negatives are taken off during the appeal. Once you lose, the negatives go back on. For a single late mortgage payment, just make sure it doesn't happen again.
* Some answers may have been provided by Yahoo! Answers.