Over 100 point difference between scores...?

[familyinND]

My husband and I are trying to prepare to buy a home. I had my daughter and an emergency surgery without insurance several years ago. Many of those bills got reported on our credit and we even got sued for 3 of them. However, they are *ALL* paid including the 3 judgments. The last judgment was paid off over 2 years ago, the last bill was paid off about 3 months ago. We have two loans out that we have been paying on time and making larger than the minimum payment due on both accounts, we also have a credit card that we have paid the balance almost entirely off each month. (Our bank told us to keep a small balance on the card so we have.) We've had those accounts for 1-3 years. Well, we checked our credit and the final bill that we paid off was showing as still open and owing. We are in the middle of disputing it, the creditor admits this was a mistake on their end and that they have fixed it and have sent us a letter clearly stating that the account is closed and paid. I'm wondering what else we can do though, we're guessing that this one account still showing open and active is knocking down two of our scores so that they are in the low 600's. Our third score is in the mid 700's which we honestly thought we'd be closer to considering that we have very little debt (our debt to income ratio is now 9%) and have been paying things off and on time. What else can we possibly do to raise his score up? Or will we get a nice bump on our two other scores when the final medical bill is showing paid and closed? We've worked incredibly hard to try and get to this point and it's just frustrating to think we were there only to find out that because of a computer error we aren't.

[Anonymous]

It is possible that the judgments don't report to that credit bureau. With 3 judgments on your credit report, your scores in the low 600s are about right. Not sure if you can goodwill judgments or not but you might want to look into that. And since you have already paid them all off, not sure if the Hippa process will work for you as well but someone else might know.

[fishbjc]

I just had a medical bill deleted because I asked.....nicely!

Plead your case with the CA.  If the bill is paid, they may look upon you as a worthwhile deletion.

Can't hurt to try.  Medical collections seem to be pretty easy to get removed.  I had another removed for a bad address, they didn't even question it.

[familyinND]

My husband has several very old bills (over 7 years old, from before I even met him) that are unpaid with the medical company, I don't want to risk asking them to delete them only to have them look the others up and post them back onto his credit.

[familyinND]

Also, in May his credit score was in the 650's, so we know that even though the judgments are on there they don't make his score lower. I'm guessing paying off the old collections is what initially brought it down.

[KatrinaE]

I was in shoes similar to yours about a year in a half ago - recovering/rebuilding my score to buy a house.   Once I was able to get all the bad things off that I could and began rebuilding with new credit lines (were used and paid in full each month) I found a mortgage broker.  You need to find one that is familar AND successful in getting people in your shoes approved.  Take him a copy of your 3 reports - if he knows what he is doing, he will go off of yours.  If they ask you for a HP - turn in the other direction.  Once you find one work with them closly to get where you need to be to get a mortgage.  Then find a realtor to help you find your new home and structure the deal. 

We opted to build.  Due to our employment we just opted to work on getting me approved for the mortgage.  When I begn in June 2011 middle score was 539, by November I was able to get it to 650.  (I had been working on it for the past 3 years though and the increase came from paying down credit lines mostly.)  They broke ground January 2012 and we moved in in June and could not be happier - w/ 3.75% interest rate.  I was told by our lender that for FHA scores can be as low as 620-640 and have mainstream rates. 

Good luck to you and hopefully this time next year you will be telling us about your AWESOME new home =)

[Shogun]

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@familyinND wrote:
My husband has several very old bills (over 7 years old, from before I even met him) that are unpaid with the medical company, I don't want to risk asking them to delete them only to have them look the others up and post them back onto his credit.

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Once they have aged off, they cannot be posted back to his CR.

[annielorie]

Are those judgements still on report try to get them vacated and good will and hippa the heck out of the medical bills.  Good luck