Ohio State Tax Lien Removal - And Thanks to this Board!!

[mintons]

I wanted to share a bit of succes with the boards, because I know that I have seen a couple people in the past asking about the same thing.  

I was able to get two state tax liens removed from both Transunion and Equifax (waiting on a response from Experian now) credit reports after almost 10 months of no success, and often asked about how to do so on the boards, and not much is out there.  I wanted to share what I did, and how it happend for others that may be in a similiar situation.

Here are some of the things that I did throughout the process:

1.  Obviously, make sure you have them paid.

2.  Ensure you have all of the necessary paperwork, notice of payment, releases, information from county courthouse, etc.

3.  I asked the courthouse where I paid the liens off  if they could send notification to each of the agencies requesting to remove the liens.  The informed me that they did not do that, but did not care if it was removed, and told me to contact the agencies myself, gave me contact info for each of the agencies, and sent me on my way.  Thanks for the help right!!

4.  So Anyway, I then sent all of the paperwork to each of the Credit Agencies and requested that they remove the liens.  They each replied that they had verified that the entries were valid, and apparently the courthouse confirmed they needed to stay.....despite what they told me....so on to next attempt.....

5.  I then hired an attorney (probably a waste of money, but I thought an attorney would put some weight into the request) and paid them to send copies of all of the information to each of the three agencies, informing them that everything had been paid, and that they should be deleted.  Again, each of the three agencies replied that they had updated my reports to paid in full, but they did not remove them.  The attorney was like, hey, good news....we got them to update the reports to paid in full, knowing at this time I wasted $250, and feeling a little frustrated I just set on it for a few months.  Lurking on this site, desperately searching for other courses of action...I did see someone had some success with the office of comptroller.

6.  So, I then sent out letters to the office of comptroller, no response......sent some more letters....no response.....called them, left some messages, no response.

7.  Again, frustrated and about to just give in to the fact that I most likely am going to carry those entries for many more years, i tried one last attempt.

8.  I found the Ohio Attorney General website, and tired of putting formal letters together, etc......just sent an entry through their website, through the "contact us" link, wrote a brief explanation of my request, what had caused the issues, what I had done in the two years since the problem, our intentions of buying a house, etc......just straight from the heart.  Fully believing that I would never hear from them as well.  The VERY NEXT DAY, I got a very nice email response from someone at their office informing me that they had sent an expungement letter to each of the three agencies, and wishing me luck, and that I should follow up with them the agencies in 7-10 days to see what their response was.

9.  I waited 10 days, no response via mail, etc......so rather than contacting them myself, I went to the CFPB website and submitted a complaint/investigation request.  I sent one for each agency, and with each request I attached copies of my previous requests (The attorney letter, a letter I had sent them, and then a copy of the expungement letter from the Attorney General)

It has been a toltal of about 8 days, and just today I got notfication back from Transunion and Equifax that they had reviewed my request, and have removed the liens from my credit reports!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Now, granted I am still waiting on Experian to respond, and they could very well keep it on there.....but hey, a little success is better than none, and certainly validates the last 10 months of no traction.  Hopefully, if someone is in Ohio and looking to remove liens as well, this will provide some encouragement, and motivation as well to keep on trying!!

I appreciate this board, as it has been crucial in my rebuilding journey!!!  About 15 months ago, my scores were ranged from 560-590 across the three......within 15 months I have brought my average score ranges up to 660-690, removed 4 collections accounts through PFD's, removed items that were not mine, removed some late payments, etc.  

Thanks to everyone who has the knowledge to respond to these posts!!!!

[Anonymous]

Congratulations!! 

I have a CA tax lien (paid & released) that I got because I didn't file my state taxes when I was in the military. I didn't know I stillhad to pay taxes in a state I wasn't living in and the preparer at H&R block didn't even tell me anything about it. 

What did you say to the attorney general? Did you file a complaint or just a general email?

[msbia]

OP, thank you so much for sharing your story. I too, had gotten my score almost exactly to where yours are last year and in April I was hit with two Ohio tax liens which were erroneously reported as taxes not filed. I went through the same months of frustrated wall-hitting you did, and then I also sent a letter through the AG website. Two months later I was contacted by this kind woman, after everyone else had been dismissive and rude, who promised to clear this up. That was in October. She called in November and told me that the lien was found to be in error and that a null and void document was issued, and should be in the mail to me, and to contact her in 14 days if I didn't receive it. I am still waiting. I called her this past Monday (Dec. 30) and she told me again she spoke to someone in my county, and is still waiting to hear back. By the way, the lien was changed on my credit report in June to "paid, released" which is a lie...I never paid because I never owed! Disputing it with the CB did nothing because it came back validated.

i am so frustrated at this point and I don't know where else to turn. Thanks again for sharing and hopefully this will help others in the same boat.

[mintons]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Congratulations!! 

I have a CA tax lien (paid & released) that I got because I didn't file my state taxes when I was in the military. I didn't know I stillhad to pay taxes in a state I wasn't living in and the preparer at H&R block didn't even tell me anything about it. 

What did you say to the attorney general? Did you file a complaint or just a general email?

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Hello, as for what I said??  I just sent them a note, explaining what had happened (circumstances, etc.....we had a very sick baby at birth, and wife unable to work to health issues with the pregnancy, so got behind) and how I ended up getting the lien, what I did to get them paid off, what my credit history had been like the last two years, etc. and that we were looking to buy a house, but this was showing negatively on my credit report.  Really just spoke from the heart.  I sent this as an email through their website, she responded next day with letters to expunge the entries from my reports that she had sent to the collections agencies.  I then waited for a bit, and when no response from credit agencies, I then filed an investigation online through the CFPB website.  Transunion and Equifax both removed immediately.  Equifax has disputed saying they will not remove, so I am apparently going to have to try other avenues with them.

[mintons]

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@msbia wrote:

OP, thank you so much for sharing your story. I too, had gotten my score almost exactly to where yours are last year and in April I was hit with two Ohio tax liens which were erroneously reported as taxes not filed. I went through the same months of frustrated wall-hitting you did, and then I also sent a letter through the AG website. Two months later I was contacted by this kind woman, after everyone else had been dismissive and rude, who promised to clear this up. That was in October. She called in November and told me that the lien was found to be in error and that a null and void document was issued, and should be in the mail to me, and to contact her in 14 days if I didn't receive it. I am still waiting. I called her this past Monday (Dec. 30) and she told me again she spoke to someone in my county, and is still waiting to hear back. By the way, the lien was changed on my credit report in June to "paid, released" which is a lie...I never paid because I never owed! Disputing it with the CB did nothing because it came back validated.

i am so frustrated at this point and I don't know where else to turn. Thanks again for sharing and hopefully this will help others in the same boat.

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Man, sorry to hear you are having such an issue.....it is a frustrating process, I can agree with ya on that!  I would just keep hammering them with the information the AG provides stating that it is not yours.  Good luck in your attempt to take care of this!!!

[msbia]

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@mintons wrote:

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@msbia wrote:

OP, thank you so much for sharing your story. I too, had gotten my score almost exactly to where yours are last year and in April I was hit with two Ohio tax liens which were erroneously reported as taxes not filed. I went through the same months of frustrated wall-hitting you did, and then I also sent a letter through the AG website. Two months later I was contacted by this kind woman, after everyone else had been dismissive and rude, who promised to clear this up. That was in October. She called in November and told me that the lien was found to be in error and that a null and void document was issued, and should be in the mail to me, and to contact her in 14 days if I didn't receive it. I am still waiting. I called her this past Monday (Dec. 30) and she told me again she spoke to someone in my county, and is still waiting to hear back. By the way, the lien was changed on my credit report in June to "paid, released" which is a lie...I never paid because I never owed! Disputing it with the CB did nothing because it came back validated.

i am so frustrated at this point and I don't know where else to turn. Thanks again for sharing and hopefully this will help others in the same boat.

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Man, sorry to hear you are having such an issue.....it is a frustrating process, I can agree with ya on that!  I would just keep hammering them with the information the AG provides stating that it is not yours.  Good luck in your attempt to take care of this!!!

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Thanks so much! I can't hammer an invisible nail unfortunately. The problem resolution officer who is working on this for me at the AG's office is extremely nice and she seems as frustrated as I am; she has been trying for me since October! I just pulled my credit reports again and this tax lien is the LAST negative listed on my reports, so it is triple frustrating for me!

[gdale6]

Fantastic, grats to all your success

[Anonymous]

Thank you so much for this post!  I was in the exact same situation and only because of you was I able to get these removed from my credit report.  I also contacted the Ohio Attorney General by using the contact us section as you did.  It worked!  I got an email a week later telling me that they had submitted the expungement ppw to all 3 agencies and sent copies to me at home.  I got those letters one week later.  TransUnion removed it from the first letter from the OH Attorney General.  Experian removed it once I filed a dispute and attached my copy of the letter as proof. It has not been removed from Equifax yet.  I have not heard back from that dispute.  I am very gratful that I found this post and your hard work definitely helped me after lots of frustration.  If you are in OH this does work.  Do it!

[Anonymous]

Did you ever get Equifax to remove it?  As I stated above they are the last one's I need to remove the state tax lien information.  Any help is appreciated!  I am in OH too and everything you have done has worked for me too.  Thanks!

[msbia]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Did you ever get Equifax to remove it?  As I stated above they are the last one's I need to remove the state tax lien information.  Any help is appreciated!  I am in OH too and everything you have done has worked for me too.  Thanks!

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Hi Jje, believe it or not Equifax still refuses to delete this lien that is no longer reporting on the other two bureaus. I have no idea why! It is keeping my score below 700; TU is 724, EX is 721 and EQ is 676.  I am SO happy thing worked out for you as outlined, thanks for sharing and continue to fight again the Equifax oppression!