Your credit report is generated by a credit bureau and it details your credit history. This includes your repayment history, overdue accounts, writs, and summons as well as court judgments related to debts. Everyone has a credit report, but not everyone has a good one. Court Judgments remain on your credit report for five years, though there are many ways how to get rid of a court judgment.
They can impact your ability to obtain credit whether in the form of a mortgage or a personal business loan. Therefore, it’s important to know what action you must take to remove it from your credit report. This article will take you through the five steps you should take to remove a court judgment from your credit report.
What is a credit report?
A credit report contains important information about your credit history. Credit bureaus create your credit report from the information they receive. A credit bureau is a company or organization that collect the relevant information needed. They then make this information available to lending institutions such as banks. The lending institution will use the information to determine whether they will grant the credit based upon your borrowing trustworthiness, judged by the credit providers.
Your credit report is based on many factors such as:
- Your repayment history
- Your credit enquiries
- Your overdue accounts listed as payment defaults
- Writs and summons
- Court judgments related to debts
- Your credit history of five years
If you’re wanting to learn how to get rid of a court judgment, you will need these five steps.
How to get rid of a court judgment
Here are five things you should do if you want to learn how to get rid of a court judgment. Let’s take a look.
1. Contact the credit provider
When it comes to how to get rid of a court judgment, the first thing you should do is write to the credit provider. This is the person who obtained the judgment against you. You should ask them to confirm that you have paid them back. Make sure you get it in writing to ensure valid evidence is made. It is very important that you have this information to show that you have satisfied the judgment debt.
2. Contact the credit bureau
The next step you will need to take is to provide the letter to the credit reporting agency. Next, you will need to request that they remove the judgment from your record. This step is very important when it comes to how to get rid of a court judgment. This step will usually be enough for some credit reporting agencies, but not all.
Others may only add a notation to your credit report that says you’ve repaid the judgment debt. However, with it on your credit report, most lenders will likely be deterred from providing you with credit.
3. Obtain a consent order
If the credit bureau refuses to remove it, your next step is to ask the credit provider to sign consent orders. The order should state that the parties have agreed to put aside the judgment and discontinue the proceedings. They will need to file them with the appropriate court registry if they decide to sign the orders. It is then the court’s job to consider the consent orders.
If appropriate, the court will then make the orders as well as advise the parties that it has entered them. Once the parties have been able to enter the record, the credit reporting agency will be notified. The agency will then update its own records.
4. Apply to the court seeking to set aside judgment
Sometimes, a judgment credit simply will not agree to sign consent orders. Once the court has been able to enter a judgment, the judgment creditor doesn’t have to consent to set aside the judgment.
5. Dispute the claim
If none of the above rules is in your favour, you have the opportunity to dispute. To do this, you will need to apply to the court that issued the judgment to set it aside. An application to set aside a default judgment must include:
- The reason you delayed making the application (if needed)
- The reason you failed to file a defence within the time
- Any honest defence you have in respect of the claim
Where you’ve paid the judgment debt, this could be regarded as admitting the validity of the creditor’s claim. This can make getting an order to set aside the default judgment rather difficult.
Where you have paid the judgment debt, this may be regarded as admitting the validity of the creditor’s claim. This can make getting an order to set aside the default judgment very difficult.
Help with how to get rid of a court judgment
A court judgment that lingers on your credit report for a long five years is extremely prohibitive and can make it difficult to be approved any form of finance.
If you need to remove court judgments then Clean Credit are experienced in this process and can do all the hard work for you. Enquire with Clean Credit today and your problems could be solved in no time at all!