Judgment on Credit Report

[Anonymous]

Hi,

I recently applied for a mortgage and of course my credit report was pulled to review my history. My credit was repaired a while back and I now have zero debt, however there was a judgment against me from Discover card in 2004. Since that judgment I settled with Discover Bank (paid as agreed), but the judgment is still listed on two of my credit reports (Experian, Transunion) as not paid, but is not appearing on my Equifax report at all. I've contacted Experian and Transunion to have it removed, but I had a few questions.

1. My understanding is that even if they are paid judgments stay on your report for 7 years. Could this be the reason Equifax doesn't have the judgement on their report while the other two do?

2. I know they have 30 days, but how long does it typically take to review in a situation where it seems clear. What I mean is that I'm not disputing anything that cannot be proven by looking at my credit report since my credit report shows the pay-off to Discover.

3. Should I contact the court to make sure the judgment has been changed to paid?

Thanks for any additional information you can provide. Thank you.

[RobertEG]

Judgments, being public record information, often get into a consumer credit file through ways other than reporting by one of the parties.

Courts rarely, if ever, report to CRAs.  The judgment creditor may have reported, but again they may not.

The CRAs hire private businesses to scour public records and supplement their files, so it may have been done by one CRA, and not another.

They can thus be a bear to get removed prior to their normal CR exclusion period at 7 years from date of judgment.

You can contact the court to see if the judgment creditor reported satisfaction of the debt to them, and that is probably prudent to clear up any legal loose ends, but it wont affect your score or require any deletion of the judgment.

I would suggest contacting the judgment creditor, and inquiring as to whether they are the party who furnished the reporting to the CRA.  If so, they can delete their own reporting.  If not, you are most likely stuck with it until its normal CR esclusion rolls around.