A judgment lien occurs when a property owner fails to pay a debt and a court of law orders a lien for the unpaid debt against the owner’s property. Not only does a credit report judgment lien seriously affect the owner’s credit score but the property cannot be sold without repayment of the debt which resulted in the lien.
The debtor waits for the sale of the property to collect the debt and in that time they can collect interest on the debt. Judgment liens cost consumers considerable time and money. – Both in the short term and the long term. The best way to deal with the serious consequences of a judgment lien is to negotiate with the creditors who sued you.
How much can you pay?
You owe a debt larger than you can afford to pay. You want to satisfy the creditor. Negotiating payment plan with the creditor might be a great solution for you but you have to do it the smart way.
Be careful about how much money you want to pay. Can you afford that sum each month? The last thing you want to do is make late payments on other bills while you’re trying to remove a lien and improve your credit score!
Get the negotiated terms in writing
This isn’t going to be a fast process. You’re going to have to get everything in writing. – Especially the terms of the negotiated arrangement! You are going to have to submit all documentation to the court.What will the creditor report to the credit bureaus?
Once you have paid off your debts and the court has removed the lien from your property you think you’re finished, right? Far from it. You have to negotiate (in writing again) what the company is going to report about the account to the three major credit bureaus. You want them to report the account as “Paid as Agreed.” Any other term (settled, charge off, etc.) will hurt your credit score!
Contact Bureaus
Again, negotiating debts and judgment liens is not a fast process! Your credit is your responsibility. No one else (unless you hire a professional) cares about your credit score. You have to follow up with each of the major credit bureaus yourself by certified mail to make sure they fix your credit. You’ll be mailing all of them letters and documentation of the account in question. Then you should routinely order copies of your credit reports – from all three bureaus to make sure the credit card company reported the account they way they agreed to report it.
If you don’t have three to six months to circle back with all of this correspondence, you could call Lexington Law Office. They have attorneys who do this back and forth for a living!
"I just want to share with you my story about how my credit situation. If you are someone struggling with bad credit, then I was walking in your exact same shoes...
And today - if you look behind me - this is the house that I bought.
So, obviously my credit situation has changed.
Basically, while I was in college I ran up my credit cards and acquired a lot of unmanageable debt which destroyed my credit rating.
About a-year-and-a-half ago when I went to try to buy a house, the banks laughed at me and made me feel bad about what happened in college. (They basically implied that I was a deadbeat SCUMBAG even though it really wasn't all my fault).
I knew that I had to fix my credit, but didn't know how to do it myself so I went to Lexington Law.
Now, literally within several months, I was able to purchase a $300,000 new home without any trouble at all obtaining a mortgage.
So instead of going into banks with bad credit and being looked at as a scumbag, the banks were more than willing to help.
In fact, when I applied for my mortgage and the banker ran my credit, he came back and was saying...
"Wow! Sure thing sir. We'd love to help you out."
Lexington Law literally changed my life.
I went from being the person who has bad credit to being the person who is living in what I consider my dream home at age 29.
I had basically every kind of negative listing shy of a bankruptcy.
Lexington Law has raised my credit score at least 237 points. I just checked my FICO score which is now a 737. When I started with Lexington Law, it was below 500!"
I encourage anyone struggling with bad credit to pick up the phone and give Lexington Law a call.
It was super-encouraging to see my credit score improve each month as the negative items were deleted from my credit reports. I thought some of the bad credit was permanent since creditors misled me into believing that delinquent information would stay on my credit report for the next seven years.
However, through their dispute process and "goodwill interventions," Lexington Law proved it is possible to remove any questionable negative item. (it is the same as pleading 'not guilty' in a court of law).
Additionally, the paralegal assigned to my case showed me other credit rebuilding techniques such as:
Deleting the negative credit items like charge offs and the credit card judgment, combined with the credit rebuilding techniques, rapidly improved my credit score. In fact, in month two my score went up 74 points!
After living with bad credit for so long, it was really encouraging to see that I was making progress in the right direction.
Not only did the attorneys at Lexington Law show me results, they also provided excellent customer service along the way. If you are someone who enjoys that "personal touch", then you may like how Lexington Law assigns a paralegal to your case.
My paralegal (Stephanie) was always available to discuss the status of my case over the phone and email. Even though I didn't expect or ask for it, my attorney would also periodically give me a call to check in.
Here are some strategies Lexington Law used to delete the really stubborn bad credit - such as the credit card judgment:
You can also access you case online anytime you like. (I enjoyed logging in just to see all the deletions!)
If you are struggling with a bad credit score because of negative credit items, then I truly hope that you start repairing your credit today. I know how humiliating bad credit is and I know how easy it is just to 'sweep it under the rug' and pretend it will go away on its own.
I realize that your situation is probably a little different than mine, however, Lexington Law has already deleted questionable charge offs, a credit card judgment, late payments, collection items, and inquiries from my credit report and raised my credit score to a 737!
Here is a shot of my credit score online last month -:
To get started repairing your credit, call Lexington Law today direct at:
1-800-232-2903 (toll-free)
Or, if you want a Lexington Law paralegal to call you, click here.
