Credit Repair Tips and Tricks

It seems that people with bad credit are searching for tricks to raise credit scores fast. The truth is there are ways to improve your credit but there are no ways to simply trick the credit companies into increasing your score.

The best way to increase your fico score is to remove old negative information and add new positive information to your report. This is accomplished through a variety of ways that are listed below.

Ways Improve Your Credit Score

Wait It Out- If you can all your negative marks on your credit report will be removed in 7-10 years. In reality how ever most people cannot wait that long and need more immediate solutions to fix their problems.

Pay For Credit Repair- There are companies that will attempt to repair your credit report for you. Most of these companies will charge a large up front fee or monthly installments. The results vary widely from company to company and because most charge by the month they will intentionally drag the process out to maximize their profits.

Self Credit Repair - Self Credit Repair is probably the most effective and beneficial way for you to improve your fico scores. With self credit fixing you will be doing exactly what any company that charges a fee will do. If you are unsure of how to do this you can easily go online and find a good book or kit that will give you all the information that you need to be successful.

Just make sure that any program that you follow is giving you up to date information, a detailed plan to follow, tools to track your progress and most importantly effective credit dispute letter templates.

Bankruptcy - What does this mean for you?

In a nutshell, bankruptcy is a legal declaration that says you aren’t solvent and your assets will be distributed among your creditors. To be frank, bankruptcy is a lot more complicated than that general definition.

Bankruptcy is dictated by Federal law in the United States. However, State law does affect the way bankruptcy is executed locally. An example being, the determination of whether or not you’re eligible to declare is found at the State level.

If you’re completely buried by the amount of debt you have, bankruptcy can help to wipe the slate clean for you to start over. However, it’ll stay on your credit report for as many as 10 years. This will affect your ability to receive credit until that time, as well. You need to take this decision very seriously, for it does have it's lasting affects.

When you decide that bankruptcy might be right for you, the best thing you can do is hire an attorney to assist you with the process. While you can represent yourself in bankruptcy court, it helps to have someone in your corner who knows the ropes.

Retaining an attorney's services does have a price. You can spend anywhere from $500-1000 to get legal representation, but that amount is probably much smaller than the amount of debt you actually deal with on a pre-scheduled basis - month to month.

Most bankruptcy attorneys will offer a free consultation so that you can go over your scenario completely and accurately. The attorney will then recommend which type of bankruptcy for which you’re eligible as well as going over the process of filing paperwork and proceeding to court. To research bankruptcy/credit repair resources is only a click away, to educate yourself before making a final decision. Good luck in all of your future endeavors.

Credit Repair | Judgements

If you have judgments against you, they can sometimes appear for longer than 7 years on your report, but the laws vary in each state. Judgments can also be re-filed after they expire. Judgments are filed in a fi fa document at your local courthouse.

Regardless of your state’s laws, you should also challenge any judgments that are older than 7 years, because the burden of proof is put on them, not you, and you may get it removed.

If you decide to settle a judgment by paying it off, or having an attorney negotiate for you, make it a condition that all negative information will be deleted from your file by the creditor. Don’t forget to get everything in writing.