A recent court order has required the three major credit bureaus (Experian, Equifax and TransUnion) to clean up the credit reports of millions of consumers who have filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection. What often has happened is that old debt, discharged in the bankruptcy filing continues to appear on individual's credit reports.
The case has come out of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California and the Honorable Judge David O. Carter has made the ruling. He has given the credit bureaus until today (October 1, 2008) to revamp their systems to handle making the required changes. According to Jane J. Kim of the Wall Street Journal, Experian and TransUnion appear to have already updated their systems. Equifax, on the other hand, has not issued a comment.
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In my personal experience as a consumer bankruptcy attorney, I have heard countless horror stories from clients whose credit reports were filled with misinformation. Particularly, discharged debts were not properly updated on the credit bureaus. The creditor, who has just had a debt eliminated, has no incentive to help assist the debtor by reporting the debt as discharged to the bureaus. Under the new court order, the impetus has been placed on the bureaus to make sure that prior debt, discharged in a chapter 7 bankruptcy case, does not show as due and owing.
As a bankruptcy attorney, I always advise about the fresh start that Chapter 7 usually provides. The misinformation on the credit bureaus after the discharge has been a frustrating event that debtors have had to confront. It usually involved a letter writing campaign, disputing the negative items on a credit report that should have been eliminated.
It will be very interesting to see what kind of bounce prior clients receive to their credit score. It could mean a substantial savings when it comes to obtaining future credit. With the credit score being so important today, any increase in the credit score can means thousands of dollars over the course of an auto loan or mortgage.
If you have had a Chapter 7 bankruptcy case within the last ten years, I would recommend obtaining a copy of each of your three credit reports from the major bureaus. This can be done for free at http://www.annualcreditreport.com. If you are seeing negative information that should have been removed, take the necessary time to dispute that information in writing. By doing so, and with the help of the recent court order, you should see an increase in your credit score.
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