If the court renders a judgemnt in favor of the debt collector, that is an adverse judgment that posts to the public record, and public records searches by the CRAs will normally find the judgment and post it in their credit reports.
A judgment has a credit report exclusion date under FCRA 605(a)(2) of the later of 7 years from the date of entry of the judgment OR until the expiration of the period of enforceability of the judgment.
If you pay the debt within 7 years from date of entry, it will become exclude no later than the 7 year mark.
However, if it remains unpaid, its exclusion can be extended as long as the judgment continues to be enforceable. Most civil judgments have an initial period of enforceabiltiy of 10 years, and can be extended, so theorectically, an unpaid judgment could remain indefinately.
However, numerous anecdotal posts here in the forum indicates that the CRAs routinely do not monitor whether judgments remain enforceable, and exclude based only on the expiration of the 7 year period.
