My husband and I are coming into some money. We got ourselves into a terrible debt situation a few years ago due to overwhelming medical bills. We maxed out our credit cards. Ended up having to stop paying. We then renegotiated some of the credit cards to a 0 percent interest rate to be paid off in within 3-5 years for each one. We are probably about 2 years from paying off several. The others that would not work with us went to collections and are now with various junk buyers.
So the question, we are coming into some money. I would like to pay the medical bills off, my student loan. Even though I had copays for medical bills, do you think if I offer to pay right away, the hospital will negotiate this debt down a bit? I think it is about 5k in medical bills right now with the hospital. In addition, the cards that were willing to work with us and did a zero percent interest rate for us. Do you think if I call them and say I am willing to take care of this today can we negotiate a settlement and have it show paid in full on our credit reports?
What about the junk buyers. I have an issue paying this as they have been passed to so many. I don't know who truly owns the account. Technically I do not owe them when they paid pennies on the dollar. I want them off my credit report. My first thought is to dispute them all. See which ones have stuck. I have been sued by a few. But I won each suit as they were not able to produce any evidence they owned the debt, etc. After my defense, they all dropped their cases. Our goal is to buy a new house within a year because we are so crammed into this one.
Without any of the credit card debt, we can do it. I plan to make sure all items are paid on time for the next year. Dispute whatever is on my credit report and get it cleaned up. What is the fastest way and cheapest way to get everything cleaned up? I have a certain amount of money to work with. I want to put some away in savings while cleaning up everything. I think I added it all up and it came to about 30k of debt excluding junk buyers. But the junk buyers have small amounts. I probably have a total of 4k with junk buyers. The big cards were willing to work with us. I have about 40k that I am getting.
Hi missgamecock,
I'm moving this thread to Rebuilding Your Credit. Also, I edited your post,but I didnt change the contents, I hope you don't mind. Having spaces/phargraphs it's easier to read,you may see more replies this way. 
If you wish to "edit", click on options (upper right corner of your message) then click on edit. --Lightnin-myFICO mod
What you really want to do with the negative accounts is negotiate what we refer to as a Pay for Delete (PFD). In other words you will pay an agreed upon sum and they will remove the account from your credit reports. This obviously works best when you are willing to pay the full amount of the debt due. I would start with a round of contacting all the creditors and see how many would be interested in this form of negotiation with you. If they are willing to talk about it then get a commitment in writing and send the payment.
Once you have accomplished what you can with them then contact the remainder and see what kind of negotiated settlements you can get to have the accounts closed. If possible you would like them to close with just a paid notation versus a settled for less than owed, but the primary goal is to get the accounts in a closed status. You can work with them in whatever order you choose. With the junk debt buyers I would start out by offering them 25% in the form of an immediate cash settlement. Again get it all in writing.
Save the ones who refuse a PFD or settlement for last. You may want to see where your credit scores are at when all the initial rounds settle down and how close you are to qualifying for mortgages. At that point you could get advice on which ones to work with and which to ignore. With the remainder of the money in savings you would have options if a mortgage lender said "You need to pay these first."
The Rebuilding Your Credit forum has some really excellent posters who can help out with advice on specific creditors if you want to post some details over there. Good luck in your repair journey.
Starting Score: 500's
