topic Re: My Mortgage Journey using FICO in Understanding FICO® Scoring

My Mortgage Journey using FICO

Anonymous — Mon, 07 May 2007 15:02:16 GMT

Well, here goes...the good, the bad, and the ugly! I thought you might want to share in my journey as a single mom trying to buy a first house (a little pathetic in my late thirties, but better late than never).

I started my goal in February with the following eq 593 (now 646), tu 577(now 622), and ex 590(now 664*). All are FICO except the current experian that is from Experians freecreditreport.com. I plan to pull that through FICO. I have Score Watch and the TU (My Fico) Identity Theft watch.

I have a barrage of issues that some of you may identify with...

- Multiple defaulted student loans from years past that never seem to drop off no matter how old they are (I had them re-purchased in Dec 05 and are showing as a new account since then with no lates and perfect status), but the old ones are so damaging and they show new every time they were sold, etc. so 4 overall loans look like 12!!! Has anyone had luck with dealing with student loans? I tried to dispute some that I thought were inaccurate or duplicates, but it seemed to make it worse.

- Bankruptcy that is now 7 years old, but has 3 more years before it drops off.

- Old Collections - all but 3 were paid. Of the 3, 2 are minor balances (<$100) and the other was bigger. My lender said they would have to be dealt with, so like a dummy, I paid the highest one. I now know that it will appear as a current issue and despite the $0 balance, it will hurt my score. Stay tuned and I will report the damage as I expect it to hit any day... Has anyone had any experience with asking to pay past collections as a condition of escrow instead???

- Judgements/lein ...this part kills me. I have an Innocent Spouse status with the IRS (my ex was a real creep, which is a big reason I have all of these messes to begin with). However, the State acted on unpaid taxes only notifying the "primary" (my ex) and not me - something about their process says they don't have to, how convenient. While the IRS was giving me IS status, the State gave me 2 judgements and a tax lein. Now they are working on applying my IS status to the State. I really hope that they will remove the lein at that time, but I have no idea what to do to get those judgements removed. Since they are judgements, can they be reversed, removed, anything??? Will this take another lawyer? I would appreciate anyone's past experiences on this

- On the positive side I have 4 strong accounts with low/no balances and no lates ranging from 7-22 months old.

Well...welcome to my saga. I will keep you posted and I appreciate any helpful input you have

LER

Re: My Mortgage Journey using FICO

Anonymous — Mon, 07 May 2007 17:30:12 GMT

The good news is that paying off the old collection will NOT make it any more recent it will prevent it from being resold and possibly cropping up again. Most mortgage lenders will require that you pay off any delinquent accounts before they will touch you. Now on to the lien...

I really hope that this is taken care of for you. I have a friend who was in the exact same position as you and successfully had the lien removed. I would forward any supporting documentation from the IRS to your state and request that the lien against me be dropped. Look up innocent spouse rules for your state to see if you shuold have protection under that rule. The fact that you were never notified should also give you a leg up to have it emoved. That's with all things being equal. However, we all know the power of the state. I have my fingers crossed foryou on that one.

Re: My Mortgage Journey using FICO

Anonymous — Tue, 08 May 2007 05:46:52 GMT

Congrats, your scores have gone up somewhat even across the board. What have you done since feb to get them to jump. Did you just pay down cc balances. Collections falling off. Your bk became 7 years old when? I'm trying to gather what factor do you credit the most you think caused your increase. Keep strong I know it's even often time frustrating, but this has turned into a credit repair crusade. It is eeasier in life to get some of the things you want/need with good fico scores.

BTW I also tried to dispute student loans. Some did come back updated as paid transferred or paid in full, maybe one or two was deleted. For the most part thry do make a credit report look a mess. Good luck on that.

Message Edited by LadyFICO on 05-07-2007 10:46 PM

Re: My Mortgage Journey using FICO

Anonymous — Wed, 09 May 2007 02:29:21 GMT

Part of what I know increased my score is just understanding what balance for my main cc was being reported. Luckily, Capitol One seems to report the statement balance, which is easy for me to keep track of. I went on vacation at Xmas so the balance was high ($800 something for a $1000 limit) for the Jan statement. Once I paid it mostly off my score got way better. I have also received a limit increase to $1500. I noticed that although my limit went up I was dinged for my balance being up just slightly so I paid that down under %20 again and we will see what happens.

I have 4 current accounts all in perfect standing all between 7 and 22 mo old. The card above was the most recent and I also noticed a jump after it hit the 6 mo mark. Since 2 accounts carry a $0 bal (one a $5,500 limit and the other a bank line of credit for $750) and the 3rd is a student loan of around 5K, that one cc seems to carry a big impact on the change of my score.

PS...the collection agency called me on behalf of the state for the first time....well ever. I told them the Dept of Revenue who hired them know exactly my situation with the Innocent Spouse being in process. I then faxed the IS department for a status update and am waiting for a reply. This makes me really nervous! Give you an update soon I hope

Re: My Mortgage Journey using FICO

Anonymous — Wed, 09 May 2007 06:00:19 GMT

Luckily for us we had cc with high util that could give us that quick boost. Unfortunately we must be aware of our util since it can also ding us rather quickly as you saw for xmas or big purchases. I got about a 31 point jump in EX today after 4 more cards updated. It is exciting to see the scores go up. Good Luck to you and keep us posted.

Re: My Mortgage Journey using FICO

Anonymous — Thu, 24 May 2007 00:09:17 GMT

YooHoo!!!!!!!!!!!! Good news for me! I got my letter from the state giving me Innocent Spouse status. They are calling off the collectors and removing the lein. Now I just have to do something about the judgements. I will keep you posted on how it effects my FICO

Re: My Mortgage Journey using FICO

Tuscani — Thu, 24 May 2007 12:22:59 GMT

LEBR4113 wrote:
YooHoo!!!!!!!!!!!! Good news for me! I got my letter from the state giving me Innocent Spouse status. They are calling off the collectors and removing the lein. Now I just have to do something about the judgements. I will keep you posted on how it effects my FICO

Awesome!

Re: My Mortgage Journey using FICO

Anonymous — Sat, 02 Jun 2007 13:37:27 GMT

Just an update for you. The state is removing the judgments and the lien. I am not sure what effects that will have on my FICO. Anyone have any knowledge how much a judgment/Lien can impact your actual score? These are not the only ones I have (I will have 2 or 3 older ones that I could not do anything about, but they are satisfied) so will taking off these three have any impact on improving my score?

Also, satisfying the one collection above has not made any changes to my FICO scores.

Re: My Mortgage Journey using FICO

Tuscani — Sat, 02 Jun 2007 19:00:20 GMT

LEBR4113 wrote:
Just an update for you. The state is removing the judgments and the lien. I am not sure what effects that will have on my FICO. Anyone have any knowledge how much a judgment/Lien can impact your actual score? These are not the only ones I have (I will have 2 or 3 older ones that I could not do anything about, but they are satisfied) so will taking off these three have any impact on improving my score?

Also, satisfying the one collection above has not made any changes to my FICO scores.

There is no way to say for sure. But be sure to let us know the end result.

Re: My Mortgage Journey using FICO

Anonymous — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 09:03:22 GMT

lebr4113:

Keep us posted! How is this effecting your credit have you seen any improvement due to this yet?

Re: My Mortgage Journey using FICO

Anonymous — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 23:29:44 GMT

Well...the two judgments and one lien are gone from EX now! It did not change my fako score though, so not sure what the impact to my FICO might be. My FAKO was really inflated at 670 (FICO 619). I will pull the FICO again as soon as I get one more duplication error fixed.

Only TU has left to correct the PRs.

By the way, for those of you that might be effected by a lien or judgment release I will specify what happened to correct it. Since my three were all due to the State Department of Revenue, they prepared documents for me called a Release of Lien. Mine was only a Partial Release, not because I was still liable, but because the judgment still stands in my ex's name. Therefore the partial release pertained to releasing me and not him. They sent me the original documents and I copied them and sent them to the CRAs. I included a copy of the statement of my Innocent Spouse status from the State Department as well to add credibility. I then took the originals to the County Clerk and Recorder. They made me "Certified" copies of the originals, since I only had one original and my copies were not official (worth the $2 each). They took the originals and are in the process of filing them at which point (about 10 days I am told) they will mail me back the originals to do with what I want. I will then go and file them with the courts to nullify the judgments (this comes with a filing fee - the Recorder's office was supposed to also, but they waived it).

The State said to file the "Recorded" copies with the CRAs, but before I knew that I just sent in regular copies that had not been recorded and it seemed to heve worked. I didn't need to file with the court to get some TL changes, but I need to follow through for my own sake.

Even though I still have some PRs, getting 3 removed felt sooooooooooooooo good!!!

Keep you posted on any FICO changes!

Re: My Mortgage Journey using FICO - UPDATED

Anonymous — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 20:14:00 GMT

40 pt jump in EX after 3 judgmnets dropped!!! Was 616 2 weeks ago and is now 656 with no other changes shown. (There are still 3 legit PRs left that will start to drop in 3 yrs)

EX began at 590 in Feb.

Re: My Mortgage Journey using FICO - UPDATED

Tuscani — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 00:45:49 GMT

Fantastic!

Re: My Mortgage Journey using FICO

Anonymous — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 14:24:35 GMT

What is the matter with TU??? I sent the the exact same documentation I sent the others. However, instead of removing the TLs off of my CR since I am no longer legally liable for the debt, they marked them as having been paid! Can they not read??? There is no one they could have verified with that would have said it was paid. The judgment has not been paid at all, by anyone, but I am no longer legally liable. I explained to them in the accompanying letter what the circumstance was so the documentation would not be confusing. UGH!!!

When I get the recorded version of the docs and file them with the courts in a day or two, I am going to send it all again as well as request that they send me a transcript of what occurred during the first investigation.

Any other suggestions?