One person's real world FICO score impact after completing the IRS Fresh Start program

[Slowhand]

I know when I was going through the process, I would read about people getting Tax Lien's off under the Fresh Start program and decided that it was worth the short term financial pain to try to get the proverbial "Golden Ticket".

I'm hoping someone else, who is in my situation, uses this to be the motivation to start making the changes and sacrifices needed to get to this point in theimselves.

Total IRS Debt - in the 60,000's

First Lien filed in 2009

Updated Lien filed in 2011 to reflect my new marriange and added my wife

Credit Score on 7/19/2013

Experian 680 Equifax 673 TransUnion 668

After doing the Fresh Start application and waiting I was able to get 1 instance of the Lien removed - thought that it would cover my "IRS' Lien in my naivity but it only covered the 2011 Court Number with the Form 10916 Withdrawal of Filed Notice of Federal Tax Lien.

Did the dispute process and on 9/12/2013 my scores were

Experian 676 Equifax 709 TransUnion 720

That made a 52 point swing in TransUnion and 36 point swing with Equifax.

In the dispute process, I learned that I had to get a separate Form 10916 for the Original filing from 2009.

Dissapointed but not frustrated, it made technical sense in their reasoning...I retraced my steps, calling the IRS to get the proper Court Number and dollar amount, reapplying and waiting.

Once the new Form 10916 arrived, I contacted the three credit bureaus again.

Note, there was some hesitancy to rexamine disputes that had recently been disputed and found to be "correct". Once I was able to get to someone on the phone that would listen, I was able to explain the "technical" reason for why I was legitimately redisputing these as I now had the proper technical documentation for this specific record.

Waited for the dispute process to finish - thus far only TransUnion and Equifax have finished.

Scores as of 9/25/2013

Equifax 763 & TransUnion 816

Amount of change by having the 2nd record of a lien removed?

Equifax + 54 points & TransUnion +96 points

Total amount of change from July of this year with 2 liens showing vs today?

Equifax +90 points & TransUnion +148

Obviously, clearing those off of my report made a significant difference in my credit score and I hope is encouragement for someone in a similar situation to bite the bullet, get things done and follow-thru to the end.

Not sure If we can post screenshots of the scores in the forum (don't want to break any rules) - happy to do so if anyone would like to see verification.

Once Experian finishes their dispute process - happy to post the results from them as well.

[tfkallday]

Wow great work. Congratulations!

[masscredit]

Damn!!! I thought your first score jump was good. That's great and very well worth it!!!  

[Slowhand]

Just to follow-up on Experian - I called them today because I hadn't heard from them since I submitted the proper paperwork in September.

They did remove it on Sept 13th but somehow the notification didn't make it to me.

WIth that, I've pulled the myFico score for Experian and it is now at 713.

So it went from a low of 680 to 713 - the lowest amount of improvement but still +33.

Of note - Experian was the only one to actually lower after removing 1 lien reference and had the smallest improvement.

Why they have the smallest amount of change?  I couldn't tell ya but hopefully it's a barometer to help others in a similar situation.