Paid off Judgement, Still on report

[Anonymous]

We are inches away from buying a home (thanks to reading this board a whole lot!), the only thing that is holding us back is a Judgement on my husband's credit report from the US Dept of Edu.  His loans when into default a few years ago when he forgot to defer them, because he wasn't employed at the time they were unable to garnish and therefore sought judgement instead.  We paid double on his loans for 2 years and were able to get them current again and in good standing.  However, EQ still has not removed the judgement file off of his credit report.

How do we get this fixed?  We have sent letters to the collection agency who we had to pay before, they said we have to contact dept of edu, the dept of edu says to contact collection agency.  We've written letters, sent faxes, you name it.  Can we just continue to send faxes and letters to EQ asking them to remove it?  We have a letter from the dept of edu that states that his loans have been sucessfully rehabilitated.

This is the one thing standing between us and our house and the owners are getting antsy about us not being able to go through with the financing.

Much thanks to anyone who can help.

[guiness56]

The judgment can stay on the CR for 7 years, but should show as paid. Send GW letters to the DOE asking for it to be removed.

[Anonymous]

I'm assuming that your judgment is listed as "unpaid" or "not reported?"

If it's paid and/or released, your lender shouldn't have a problem, really, It's the unsatisfied judgments that can bar your loan. If it's not marked "released" or "paid," you'll need to dispute the status with the CRAs.

Or is it a "default" status on your loans themselves? Once a loan is rehabbed, the servicer/lender is required by law to update the status. Sometimes you'll still see the lates associated with the loan, sometimes not (depends on the lender/servicer).

Can you post the pertinent info on your CR for us to see (leaving out account numbers and names, of course)? It might be easier for us to understand, and therefore, help you if we can see your situation!!

[Anonymous]

Judgments in general...paid or unpaid...affect loans...especially FHA...you need to try your hardest to get it "vacated"...

[Anonymous]

This is how it appears on his credit report.  It appears that it is unpaid, but the new rehab'd loans show up in his "good" credit section as being paid in full on time every month since they were rehab'd 6 months ago.

Legal Item Dispute Type:     Judgment  Status:     Filed Date Filed/Reported:     08/2001 How Filed:     Unknown Reference #:     1014 Closing Date:       Court:     City & County Government Plaintiff:     UNITED STATES OF AMERICA Action Amount:     $8204 Remarks: [TransUnion]     [Experian]     [Equifax]  

His scores are TU/710 EX/700 EQ/510 so it is obvious that this is killing his credit regardless of the fact that it's keeping us from getting our house.  We have disputed it through the regular process three times now and each time they come back and say that we are correct and that they will update his report to reflect that it was paid, but then never do.

[Anonymous]

Okay, AFAIK, to rehab a loan, you have to have made more than 6 months of payments (FFEL and DL are 9 months, Perkins is 12 months). So technically, though you're being reported as "paying as agreed," the loans still aren't rehabbed and won't show that way as re the judgment.

Unfortunately, AFAIK, you can't "rush" the process with double payments. You have to just wait until the 9 or 12 months have passed with good payments.

Also, I don't think it should reflect "paid in full" on your CRs under the loan (not trying to nit-pick at your post, just don't want you to TELL your broker that you have paid'em in full, cause you didn't and you don't want them to think that you lied). It should just reflect "paying as agreed."

[Anonymous]

Okay, smack me in the head with a dead fish. I think I misunderstood your post.

Please agree or disagree:
You've paid the $8K+ in FULL.
You FINISHED rehabbing the loan 6 months ago.
Currently, the loan shows as still being under judgment, even though it is PAID in FULL.

Is that right??

[Anonymous]

Okay, have you tried CALLING them? I've heard some get better response if they pick up the phone and go through the items, line by line. However, with TU, you may have to specifically ASK for a US rep (they outsource to India, apparently). Do it. Don't feel shy or guilty if you can't understand the person.

A live person, I think, would better help you (possibly direct you to a department that could help you further??) get this stupid entry off your reports (or at least, updated).

Here is a list of the "back door" numbers for the Big Three (courtesy of Sylviatob):

EQ: 866-237-5906
Experian office in TX: 1-888-397-3742
Equifax office in GA: 1-800-685-1111
TransUnion office in PA: 1-800-888-4213
TransUnion: 888-259-6845 (6am-12 pacific time)
TransUnion: 800-916-8800 (consumer relations)


But if it matters any, it (the judgment) should fall off your CRs by next year.

[Anonymous]

When the loans went into collections, he owed the 8K on them.  We had to make double payments to the collection agency in order for them to release them back to a regular lender.  The loans were purchased by Granite State back in November.  It's actually four different student loans lumped into one.  They are not paid in full at this moment, but the amount that we had to pay in order for them to dismiss the judgement was paid in full in October 2007.

Granite State reports that they are paid every month on time, the full monthly amount that is due (and then some).  The EX report for Granite State shows that the loans are in good standing, but they are still reporting the judgement until legal.  I understand that they judgement may remain on his report for another year, but shouldn't it read "paying as agreed" or "judgement satisfied" or something other than still reporting the 8K amount as still being outstanding?

The letter from the Department of Edu is dated November 3, 2007 and reads:

Congratulations! You have successfully rehabilitated your defaulted student loan(s) held by the US Department of Education.  We applaud your efforts to bring your loan(s) current by making the required number of on-time monthly payments.

What happens now?

The Department has recently sold your loan(s) to Granite State Loan Foundation.  We will advise the credit bureaus to delete any information reported by the department regarding the defaulted loan(s) sold to GSLF.

Then it goes on to explain what the interest is on it and where to send the payments to etc.

We have faxed this letter to EX multiple times now to no avail.  They say that Dept. of Edu has to fax something over and when they do that, the dept. of edu comes back and tells us that NCO financial has to fax something to them because that's the collection agency that held our loans.  NCO tells us that it has to be done by the dept. of edu.

I'm chasing my tail.

[Anonymous]

BTW,  thank you so much for those numbers.  We will definitely try calling again and see if we can't find someone there who can explain it to us.