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Question About '10 Year Good Account Rule'

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daveg38
Established Contributor

Question About '10 Year Good Account Rule'

In general, I believe positive accounts stay on credit report for 10 years.

 

My question is this: at the 10 year mark, do they automatically fall off?  If so, does that affect 'Age of Oldest Account' portion of credit file and, effectively, drop credit score?

 

My oldest is listed at 1/1/2003.  Guess you know what tomorrow would mean...

 

Please teleport topic if in wrong area.

 

 

Ch7 Discharge: 5/14/2016 | Target RedCard $900 | Merrick DYL $500
Message 1 of 15
14 REPLIES 14
McArthur
Regular Contributor

Re: Question About '10 Year Good Account Rule'


@daveg38 wrote:

In general, I believe positive accounts stay on credit report for 10 years.

 

My question is this: at the 10 year mark, do they automatically fall off?  If so, does that affect 'Age of Oldest Account' portion of credit file and, effectively, drop credit score?

 

My oldest is listed at 1/1/2003.  Guess you know what tomorrow would mean...

 

Please teleport topic if in wrong area.

 

 


 

Supposedly positive accounts that are closed fall off in ten years and it does affect account ages.  However, I'm sure it's a YMMV thing as my closed accounts seldom last six or seven years.

Message 2 of 15
daveg38
Established Contributor

Re: Question About '10 Year Good Account Rule'

Not to sound edit , but what do you refer to when saying 'YMMV'?

 

My next oldest account is my other auto loan - 6 years...  Smiley Sad

 

--edited to remove insensitive adjective.  --pizzadude

Ch7 Discharge: 5/14/2016 | Target RedCard $900 | Merrick DYL $500
Message 3 of 15
knoregs
Established Contributor

Re: Question About '10 Year Good Account Rule'


@daveg38 wrote:

Not to sound retarded, but what do you refer to when saying 'YMMV'?

 

My next oldest account is my other auto loan - 6 years...  Smiley Sad


YMMV = Your Mileage May Vary

 

~kn

 


EQ: 700 (FICO ScoreWatch) 11/26/14
EX: ??? (No Current)
TU: 681 (Discover FICO) 11/12/14

Last App 9/22/14... In Garden 'till Summer '15
Message 4 of 15
daveg38
Established Contributor

Re: Question About '10 Year Good Account Rule'

Thanks for clarifying.

 

I fear my score will drastically tank tomorrow since AAoA is at 1.11 and Oldest Account will be 10.0 flat.

Ch7 Discharge: 5/14/2016 | Target RedCard $900 | Merrick DYL $500
Message 5 of 15
mlearma
New Contributor

Re: Question About '10 Year Good Account Rule'

I'm not sure there is a 10 year rule.  I have 3 positive accounts on my credit report that are well past 10 years.

I took out a computer loan in college 1993 and it closed in 1996...100% positive tracking

Capital One credit card - closed in 2001 and never negative

Sears Card - closed in 1999 and never negative

 

I'm leaving them all out there to help with average age of accounts Smiley Happy

 

 

Message 6 of 15
daveg38
Established Contributor

Re: Question About '10 Year Good Account Rule'

That would be swell...my oldest account is an auto loan, paid in perfect standing.  Hope that will have some mitigating factor.

Ch7 Discharge: 5/14/2016 | Target RedCard $900 | Merrick DYL $500
Message 7 of 15
pizzadude
Credit Mentor

Re: Question About '10 Year Good Account Rule'

 

It is a rule of thumb that the CRAs will leave accounts on your reports for 10 years from the date they are closed, but sometimes accounts will hang on longer than 10 years.    Occassionally they will also drop off earlier. 

March2010 FICO® ~ 695 TU, 653 EQ, 697 EX
Message 8 of 15
MovingForward_2012
Valued Contributor

Re: Question About '10 Year Good Account Rule'

My student loans are almost 14 years old...not close to being paid off either Smiley Wink it is my flagship account that is always in good standing.
Cards: Orchard Bank ($1100) | Cap1 Cash Rewards ($2500) | Chase Freedom ($1000) | Best Buy ($2500) | Discover It ($1000) | Barclay Rewards ($2500) | Current scores: EX FAKO: 684, CK TU: 649, FICO EQ: 680, FICO TU: 698, FICO EX: 658 Happy Homeowner Since 2/6/13! Smiley Happy Last App: 4/5/13 Gardening until July 2014
Message 9 of 15
bs6054
Valued Contributor

Re: Question About '10 Year Good Account Rule'

Just to summarize received wisdom on this:

 

1) The "10 year rule" applies to accounts that have been closed.   Open accounts stay on the report

2) The guide line is 10 years from the date of closure, so accounts opened in 1993 and closed in 2003 might drop off in 2013

3) The credit bureaus "should" remove closed accounts from the record after 10 years automatically, doesn't always happen

4) Creditors have the right to expunge closed accounts from their records at any time, and if they do this it will no longer appear on the credit report.

 

 

So, "in general", closed accounts should disappear 10 years after closure, creditors can make them disappear earlier and sometimes they don't go away at all.

But 10 years is the general expectation.

 

 

See http://www.bankrate.com/finance/credit-cards/closing-credit-card-dings-credit-score-2.aspx

(an interview with a FICO product manager)

 

 

An account that is open with a good history can stay on forever -- it could stay on for 20 years. The bureaus will automatically remove (a closed account) in 10 years, but that could be removed sooner if that credit card issuer decides to remove it. Once it's closed and paid off, that account then becomes inactive, and it's not uncommon for the credit card issuer after a few years or even sooner to just delete that completely, just purge it from their records.

In the short run, you maintain that history. But once that comes off your credit report, you lose that good history. One of those five areas that the score considers looks at how long you've had credit -- that accounts for about 15 percent of the score. That may or may not impact your score a lot depending on your other accounts. If you've only got a few accounts, that could impact it heavily; if you've got a lot of credit for a long period of time, that will probably not impact it by much, if at all.

Message 10 of 15
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