Likelihood that judgment will start reporting on CR?

[Mike_B03]

I have a judgment from 2008 that I recently learned about and have setup a payment plan, they took the first payment yesterday.

The judgment never showed up on any of my credit reports but now that I am making payments, I'm stressing out that it may start reporting?

What do you guys think the likelihood of that is?

It couldn't have come at a worse time, right in the middle of trying to get a mortgage. My credit score is ok now (642), but if the judgment shows up, it'll plummet I'm sure.

[RobertEG]

Courts dont usually have credit reporting agreements with the CRAs, and a judgment creditor, having secured the judgment, may no longer feel the necessity of reporting that fact as a further collection tactic.  So they often dont get into consumer credit files based on specfic reporting by the parties.

However, judgments are public records, and as such, can be researched.  CRAs, apparently to improve the completeness of their files, and thus value to their customers, hire private researchers to review public records and provide that information to them.  Hard to say if or when any public record information might find its way into any given consumer's credit file.

[Mike_B03]

I feel pretty confident that a public record search by the CRAs won't find the judgment as my name is mispelled on the judgment, which is the whole reason I didn't even know about it until they garnished my bank account. 

My hope is just that the plaintiff, in this case a local junk debt buyer (I think), doesn't start reporting it. The fact that they never reported it in the first place gives me hope that they won't do it now either.