lien and collection

[PRILEY]

How high can my fico score go with a tax lien and a collection? The tax lien is about 4 years old ( I paid it as soon as it showed up) and the collection is about 10 months old, Im still trying to figure out how to get this removed. It's a water bill that I recieved from a house that I moved out of 5 years ago, Still own it  but didn't realize there was a problem till last year when the collection showed up. Seems I was billed the minumum for a year then 3 years or so later I was turned into collections. I have 2 other acounts with the same water dept. Even opened a new one 5 months before the collection, which was about 3 1/2 years after the minumum bill was stopped. Small town water dept that doesnt have a clue how fico works. I don't feel I owe it but agreed to pay it if it was removed. They even said they understood that no water was used and they would split the bill and have it removed, but then said they couldnt have it removed after they talked to the collection agency. This thing killed my credit. I have multiple credit cards with fairly high limits 9k to 20K a couple mortgages and an auto loan -almost paid off, Credit uti is around 20%. NO Lates, Average age of accts is 9 years yet my score is 684. Any ideas?

[Anonymous]

How can you get a water bill if no water was used?

If you were billed incorrectly they can recall the debt from the CA.  If they do that the CA has to delete it.

The tax lien is aging and though it will affect your score for the 7 years, that impact diminishes over time.  The collection on the other hand is new and getting it removed would help your score.

Getting your utilization down to 9% or under will help also.

[PRILEY]

Guiness, They (said) I never called them to turn off the water, However it was turned off. When it was turned off I don't know for sure, Maybe I called them,maybe I didnt, I don't remember. Maybe it was shut off when the min bill wasn't paid. I am working on my uti as almost 2 years ago I was DRINKING a beer one evening and had a brain storm that I'd like to have a bar. So I opened an IRISH PUB : ) I purchased a closed English Pub-Real estate and fixtures and put about 85K on my credit cards to get it up and running. Thought I could pay them back rather quickly however it has taken a little longer than I thought. Should have them paid off this month though. I'm sure this will help but only so much as 20% uti isn't that bad.

[RobertEG]

The problem apparently is that the collection agency does not wish to delete.

The water company could, and apparently did, request the debt collector to delete, but cannot compel them to do so, as it is not their reporting.

Have you contacted the debt collector directly to request their GW deletion?

[PRILEY]

Any idea how high the score can be after uti is below 9% ?

[Anonymous]

YMMV and your entire credit profile will factor in but I always estimate around 5 - 10 points per every 10% paid down.

[OhioCPA]

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@PRILEY wrote:

Any idea how high the score can be after uti is below 9% ?

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From personal experience, I would imagine no higher than 720-740.

[PRILEY]

Thanks  Thats the info was looking for.