Money Roots

There is information out there that says a foreclosure will remain on your credit report for a minimum of seven years. The truth is a maximum of seven years.

These reports are false, did you know that credit reporting is entirely voluntary. A lender does not have to report a negative mark on your credit file and can remove one at any time.

However I suggest you first try and dispute the foreclosure with the credit bureau. This is done by writing a dispute letter and sending it to each credit bureau.

In this dispute letter you must include why the listing is inaccurate or invalid. Reasons why include; account paid in full, not my account, information is wrong and etc.

Credit bureaus will often deem your first dispute letter invalid. They will respond by requesting more information about the dispute. This is a stall tactic; it costs the bureaus potential profits to hold an investigation.

You will have to send your dispute letter again; if you are persistent you can submit a valid dispute letter. The bureaus will then conduct an investigation into your negative mark.

Since many lending institutions have gone under because of the housing crisis and the ones that did not are financially strapped there is a good chance your foreclosure will be unverifiable. If this is the case the mark must be removed from your credit report.

If it is verified or you are having trouble getting a dispute letter deemed valid by the bureaus I suggest you hire a credit repair service. They will often have credit attorneys on their payroll with an expert understanding of the credit laws and they can use advanced dispute tactics.

We do expect to see some new laws or case precedents emerge from this housing crisis. It is probably in your best interest to hire a service especially if the foreclosure is not your only negative listing on your credit report.

You do however have one more option. You can negotiate a settlement agreement with the lender. In exchange for your payment get the lender to agree to remove the foreclosure from your credit report.

In sum, negative items do not have to stay on your credit. You can have them removed and can have a clean credit report.

This entry was posted on Friday, October 31st, 2008 at 7:40 am and is filed under Personal-Finance. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.