Any advice appreciated

[Anonymous]

We are currently in the process of trying to buy a home. The following is our current status.

I have paid off all medical and other collection accounts as of 2/1/12

One new credit card opened at that time, on time payments and below limits.

Added as authorized user on two cards with over five years of positive, never late, never over limit payments.

There is a tax lien showing as filed 8/2003 and released on 9/2007.

One car loan that is now paid off totally but did have several over 90 day late payments that falls within the 7 year period on report ... belonged to ex-spouse and was signed over in divorce when balance was paid off.

Since adding the lines of credit and paying off the collections scores have DROPPED! Is this normal?

I used scoresense.com and it is showing these scores: Transunion 554, Equifax 560, Experian 553.

What am I doing wrong? Should scores not be going up at this point? We desperately need to get into the 640-680 bracket to get Fannie Mae financing on a home we found ASAP.

Any advice is appreciated. Also, should we take a chance on a credit repair company to get faster results? I have read a lot of good reviews for Sky Blue and would love some feedback.

Thanks again,

Tamara

[pizzadude]

---

@Anonymous wrote:

We are currently in the process of trying to buy a home. The following is our current status.

I have paid off all medical and other collection accounts as of 2/1/12

One new credit card opened at that time, on time payments and below limits.

Added as authorized user on two cards with over five years of positive, never late, never over limit payments.

There is a tax lien showing as filed 8/2003 and released on 9/2007.

One car loan that is now paid off totally but did have several over 90 day late payments that falls within the 7 year period on report ... belonged to ex-spouse and was signed over in divorce when balance was paid off.

Since adding the lines of credit and paying off the collections scores have DROPPED! Is this normal?

I used scoresense.com and it is showing these scores: Transunion 554, Equifax 560, Experian 553.

What am I doing wrong? Should scores not be going up at this point? We desperately need to get into the 640-680 bracket to get Fannie Mae financing on a home we found ASAP.

Any advice is appreciated. Also, should we take a chance on a credit repair company to get faster results? I have read a lot of good reviews for Sky Blue and would love some feedback.

Thanks again,

Tamara

---

Welcome to the forums !

If you are looking to purchase a house in the near future the first thing I would recommend is to pull your FICO credit scores to see where you stand.   The scores you have listed are FAKO scores and are not used by mortgage lenders.     The EQ FICO score sold at MyFICO would be a good place to start.

How recent are the late payments ?   Have you tried sending GW letters to the creditor requesting that they remove the lates ?

What is your current revolving utilization as shown on your credit reports ?   Ideally you would want only one CC reporting a small balance ( less than 9% ), with the others reporting a zero balance.

[Anonymous]

Thank you for the reply!  You're going to have to go with baby steps for me here as I am very new to all of this!

First the late payments are all from over 1 yr ago, but there was several from what I can see. It was a situation where the car was in my name, the ex-spouse was making the payment and I didn't even realize they were being paid late until now. Soooo, here I am stuck with it. The last late payment that is showing is from March of '11 and then the vehicle was paid off in full.

One credit card has a small amount, about 30% of the credit limit which I can pay down to below the 9% easily. The other two with the longest standing history have a zero balance.

What is the GW letter? I am not familiar with that. Also, do you think that the tax lien still showing is affecting the scores eventhough it is paid and released almost five years ago?

Thank you so much, I am going to pull FICO's now and see what they show!

[pizzadude]

No problem ~ welcome aboard

There is a lot to read here, so just take your time to absorb and don't feel bad about asking questions.

Sounds like you're in pretty good shape on your CCs ~ once you pay the card with 30% util lower it should help your FICO score.

Unfortunately with your car loan you're in a bad situation, but thankfully the loan is paid now.   I would try writing them a Goodwill ( GW ) letter, asking them to help you and remove the late payments.    Tell them you were in a divorce situation and hopefully they'll be sympathetic.    There are some good resources here in the Rebuilding your Credit forum ----> take a look at the Goodwill Primer link http://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/General-Credit-Topics/Frequently-Requested-Threads/m-p/10675

The tax lien is still hurting your FICO score ~ you might be able to get it removed though.  Is it federal tax or state tax related ?

[Anonymous]

It is a state tax lien. Any advice for getting this cleared would be great. I am sure that it is killing the score.

I also just pulled the myFico for equifax and it is a 621. Do you know where I can get the best report of my transunion and experian scores? What exactly does the mortgage companies (attempting both Fannie Mae and USDA) pull to get scores?

Again, thanks for the advice - going to research those GW letters now!!

[pizzadude]

---

@Anonymous wrote:

It is a state tax lien. Any advice for getting this cleared would be great. I am sure that it is killing the score.

I also just pulled the myFico for equifax and it is a 621. Do you know where I can get the best report of my transunion and experian scores? What exactly does the mortgage companies (attempting both Fannie Mae and USDA) pull to get scores?

Again, thanks for the advice - going to research those GW letters now!!

---

Ok, I was hoping that it was an IRS lien, I know that sometimes they can be removed.   State liens I'm really not sure, there may not be a way to get them taken off. 

The Transunion score sold here is TU98, which is an older version and the TU04 FICO version that is commonly used by mortgage lenders, so it may not be a good comparison for you.   Unfortunately neither TU nor EX will sell you a FICO score directly from their websites.   

You can get your FICO scores from creditors, some provide a monthly score as a benefit, or if you are approved for credit they'll give it.  Many creditors pull EX or TU.   Is the information on your reports fairly consistant across all of your reports, TU, EX and EQ ?

[Anonymous]

Just my luck ... do you know if the 7 years that it will stay on the report stars from when it was filed or when it was released? Information on the three reports that I have been able to pull from various sites seems to be consistant across the board. There are some items reporting on one and not others and some of the medical collections that I paid off still have not updated in Transunion so I disputed those through the site. I've also noticed that some of the accounts that are closed already show a status of late. I also disputed those to have the correct status applied with the date that they were paid.

GW letter sent today, fingers crossed. I think that is a huge issue for our scores. How long does it usually take to see a response?

[Anonymous]

So eventhough my TU98 and TU04 show a certain score, that may not be what the mortgage companies see? Why must this be so complicated!?!?

[pizzadude]

Tax liens will show for 7 years from the date paid.    For your medical collections there is a HIPPA process that some people have used to successfully get medical collections removed from their credit reports ~ you might try looking into that, google "HIPPA process to remove collections".

TU04 is pulled more often by mortgage lenders, but we can't buy this version unfortunately.  

GW letters vary by creditors.   Some don't respond to them at all, some will send you a letter back within a few weeks.   If they say no, don't give up, you have to keep trying....

[RobertEG]

One of the problems with tax liens, as with other public records, is that it is often next to impossible to take the normal route of asking for GW deletion.

GWs go to the party who reported the negative information, asking them to delete their own reporting.

Who reported the information to your credit file?  The state?  A private researcher of public records?  You usually havent the slightest clue.

One path you might pursue is to send an information request to the CRA under FCRA 609(a), and get the name of the reporting party.

Consumers are entitled under that section to any information of record in their credit file.... for the required fee, which is currently $11.00.

It is not a disputable issue under the FCRA, as the issue is not one of accuracy of their reporting, so you wont be able to compel the CRA to use their reinvestigation rights to determine the accuracy of the reporting.