Best way to take care of a judgment

[luvsandyshores]

Right now my scores are 628-653, and hopefully will go up a little as I'm hoping a past creditory will erase a couple old "30-day lates" that are showing on my report.  The only problem my loan officer saw was an old unpaid $3700 judgment which I need to get taken care of.  I don't have the money to pay it all off at once.  What would be the best option here:

Borrow money from a relative to pay it off now - I can't think of a down side to this

Try to get a personal loan from my CU to pay it off - is it a good idea to take out a loan while househunting?

Discuss monthly payment arrangements - I don't think I can close on a house with arrangements in place, I'd have to wait until it is PIF, is that right? 

Would any of these options somehow drop my score?

I want to take care of this with the minimum damage to my score, although I think I could still qualify for USDA with lower scores.  Would my score go up once this is PIF?  Or would I have to ask them to consider deleting the record in return for payment?

[fused]

Greetings!

Since your questions center around fixing a ding on your credit reports, I'm going to move your post to the rebuilding your credit forum.

[Anonymous]

---

@luvsandyshores wrote:

Right now my scores are 628-653, and hopefully will go up a little as I'm hoping a past creditory will erase a couple old "30-day lates" that are showing on my report.  The only problem my loan officer saw was an old unpaid $3700 judgment which I need to get taken care of.  I don't have the money to pay it all off at once.  What would be the best option here:

Borrow money from a relative to pay it off now - I can't think of a down side to this

Try to get a personal loan from my CU to pay it off - is it a good idea to take out a loan while househunting?

Discuss monthly payment arrangements - I don't think I can close on a house with arrangements in place, I'd have to wait until it is PIF, is that right? 

Would any of these options somehow drop my score?

I want to take care of this with the minimum damage to my score, although I think I could still qualify for USDA with lower scores.  Would my score go up once this is PIF?  Or would I have to ask them to consider deleting the record in return for payment?

---

Virtually every mortgage underwriter would insist on the judgment actually being satisfied (paid).  Anything less than that is -- and should be -- a deal breaker.

Obviously the best option is to get a loan from a relative.  The only downside, though, is that you run the risk of having severe family problems if the deal goes sour.  You may want to talk to your loan officer about possible complications with a new credit union loan.  Generally they do not like to see new credit obligations and it also may screw up your debt-to-income ratio.