Judgment paid 7 years ago never reported as paid.

[Determined_Home_Seeker]

Back in May I saw a judgment on my credit profile so I called the agency to pay. Now I called them to see why they havent filed a satisfactin of judgment yet. Come to find out, the one I paid in May was never on my credit report. The one that IS reporting on my credit profile was paid back in 2007 and they are "not sure" why the satisfaction of judment was never filed. I have been putting off buying a home for two years thinking I owed this and was wating for it to come off after I paid it. I am soooo mad at this moment. Now the suckier part its, they did give me the satisfaction of judment Friday, but this thing comes off my record in 2 month anyhow. 

[StartingOver10]

Two things: 1) make sure the Satisfaction is recorded (the one from Friday). The other one should have been recorded too. 2) It is a good thing it is paid because the mortgage company requires judgments to be paid prior to issuing a loan whether or not the judgment is on your credit report. So all is good

You can pull up your own public records in the county where you live. Most of the time it is easily available by going to the Clerk of Courts website and putting in your name and all the public records will show up. It is a good double check to do before you make application for a mortgage so there are no surprises.

[RobertEG]

+1

Reporting a judgment to have been satisfied is required within a set period under the rules of the judgment court..

It is the respoonsibility of the judgment creditor to timely report its satisfaction, and once recorded with the court, it will show in any public records search.

Check with the clerk of the court, and see if they have the formal reporting.  If not, notify the judgment credtior that the court does not have record of their reporting.

[coterotie]

Be very careful here.  We had a tax lien that the state failed to file the release of in a timely fashion.  It was satisfied in October of 2004 but they didn't file the release until 3 years later.  Because of this, the date that the 3 credit bureaus used was 2007.  I got the state to write a letter notifying the probate court of their error and TU and EX both removed it from the report.  Equifax refused to remove because they said the only thing that counted was when the release was filed, not the actual payment and release that SHOULD have been filed.   They have refused to budge even with the state going to bat for me again their argument it that it is the date of filing of the release not the date of satisfaction.   It was a battle with the other two, with several disputes needing to be filed along with a lot of phone calls and documentation.  I am also battling to get it off my wife's CR as well, as only one of them allowed me to dispute and use the information for both of our files at the same time.

So make sure that all the dates are correct as to the original payment date and be prepared to vigilantly defend the reporting. 

[ezdriver]

One can take their proof of satisfaction for a judgement or lien to the cleark of their county court and have them recorded. I recently did just that when the IRS had withdrawn a lien but the withdrawal was never recorded ... until I did it! I then gave the proof of recording to my loan officer who did a rapid update of my record with the CR agencies and now the lien is no more a headache.

If folks are scared of doing the research to learn about these legal instruments and how to handle them by themselves, then I recommend that they seek legal counsel/assistance. Similar to credit repair, some folks can handle it by themselves and some cannot.