JUDGEMENTS

[susieqj]

Hello everyone,

My situation is, my landlord took me to court a couple of time, and all rents were paid in full. In my credit report they show as judgement. The years were 2002, 2003, 2004 and 2006. I went to civil court to inqure, and they refered me to housing court. A clerk at Housing court  printed out all of the docket number and told me to contact the Management lawyer's office which I did.. I contact the Lawyers and they provided me with letters showing that all judgement were satisfied and they are going to file in court on monday satisfied.  In New York state the law is that all judgement that is satisfied within five years of the date filed will be removed from credit report.   My concern is that when they file on Monday it will show that the judgement was just satisfied.... instead of the years above that  mention, when they were really satisfied.         Any advice will be appreciated...

Thanks....

[Anonymous]

The reporting period runs for 5 years from the date of filing of the case.  And it's not that if you satisfy the judgment within 5 years, the judgment is removed.  The NY rule is that paid (satisfied) judgments fall off after 5 years instead of 7 years.

So assuming that the plaintiff does, in fact, file the satisfactions on Monday for all four judgments, then the 2002 and 2003 judgments should fall off your reports.  The 2004 judgment may fall off depending on when it was filed in 2004--you may have a few more months to wait.  The 2006 judgment won't fall off until 2011, 5 years from when it ws filed (instead of 2013 following the standard (non-NY) rule).

It will take some time for these to percolate through the system to finally show up as satisfied.  You can speed up the process by sending copies of your copy of the satisfaction (that shows it was filed with the court) to the CRAs.

[Underh20]

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@susieqj wrote:

Hello everyone,

My situation is, my landlord took me to court a couple of time, and all rents were paid in full. In my credit report they show as judgement. The years were 2002, 2003, 2004 and 2006. I went to civil court to inqure, and they refered me to housing court. A clerk at Housing court  printed out all of the docket number and told me to contact the Management lawyer's office which I did.. I contact the Lawyers and they provided me with letters showing that all judgement were satisfied and they are going to file in court on monday satisfied.  In New York state the law is that all judgement that is satisfied within five years of the date filed will be removed from credit report.   My concern is that when they file on Monday it will show that the judgement was just satisfied.... instead of the years above that  mention, when they were really satisfied.         Any advice will be appreciated...

Thanks....

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Housing court judgments in New York are different than normal civil judgments in many aspects.  Most importantly, you can generally have a satisfied housing court judgment vacated.  Once vacated, you can file a dispute with the CRA and, since it will be impossible for them to verify the judgment, it must be removed. 

Most housing court judges in NY are predisposed to vacate satisfied judgments upon application of the judgment debtor.  It will help, but isn't usually a deal-breaker, to obtain a letter from the judgment creditor's attorney stipulating their agreement to having the judgments vacated.  Since it appears that they did not file satisfaction of judgments within 20 days of you having paid the judgments in full, you could -- very politely -- use that as leverage.

Also, if you happened to have entered into a payment agreement with any of the judgment creditors and compliance with that agreement resulted in your paying off the judgments, you may already have had the judgments vacated or at least shifted the burden of having them vacated to the judgment creditor.  It is very common for payment agreements that were drafted with input provided by your attorney to contain a clause whereby the judgment creditor agrees to vacate the judgment after payment in full. 

[susieqj]

Thank I will file a dispute with all 3 CRA's.... You imput was very helpful....