How To Get Bankruptcy Off Credit Report Early?

How to remove Bankruptcy from your credit report sooner

Introduction

Applying for bankruptcy may be a decision that brings financial freedom but at the same time is a decision that will affect your credit profile for several years. A Chapter 7 case remains in credit reports for 10 years from the filing date while a Chapter 13 case remains for 7 years from the filing date. It is a long time to have a bankruptcy affecting your credit score and it is always helpful to avoid such issues. However, there is some action that one can take to make the bankruptcy removed from the credit report within a shorter period than it prescribed earlier. It is also very realistic that one should be able to erase bankruptcy from his credit profile in a matter of three to four years of consistent credit repair efforts instead of waiting for 7 to 10 years.

Review Your Credit Reports

The first thing to do is to obtain your credit reports from Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion, and troll through them. This enables you to verify if the bankruptcy filing and date are accurately reported in the credit reports from the three credit bureaus. If you notice that there are some errors in the way the bankruptcy is reported, for example, the date that the bankruptcy was filed was wrong or the spelled the wrong way you can easily challenge those by reporting to the credit bureau just as you do in any other discrepancies. This way, you will adjust your timeline to be accurate and be sure that the process of removing bankruptcy has begun.

It is advisable to check your credit score before filing for a credit dispute, In case the credit bureau has not updated your score you will find it more challenging to dispute with an improved score, than with a poor one.

If you want to dispute the information about bankruptcy on your credit reports you should wait for at least one year after your bankruptcy discharge date and use this time to rebuild your credit score. Hence, creditors and credit bureaus will be more willing to delete the bankruptcies from the credit reports of the filer if the latter acts responsibly for good after the bankruptcy. The remaining advice here includes making all your payments on time in the future, using your credit cards moderately, do not applying for credit immediately. Some of these factors will assist in the process of having your credit score improved over time and therefore put you in a better standing when requesting for the bankruptcy to be expunged. A credit score higher than 600 is desirable before engaging in the process of disputes.

Submit initial report credits dispute

1 year after the discharge of your bankruptcy, you need to apply for the first round of credit report dispute since you have done all you can to boost your credit score. The best way to go about it is to send out dispute letters to each credit reporting agency, demanding that the bankruptcy claim be deleted because it is inaccurate or the credit bureau failed to verify it. You should also ensure that copies of additional documents such as discharge papers from bankruptcy and your recent tax returns are also attached. Creditors may sometimes agree to these first disputes but generally will check and will remain accurate in reporting more bankruptcies so it becomes a matter of trying again. In other words, they recommend that readers attempt the first disputes, and if the latter does not work, try them after several months.

Attempt Early Bankruptcy Exclusion

In the first step, one can go back to the credit bureau and try to dispute the credit report again, otherwise, the next procedure is to ask for an early bankruptcy exclusion from each credit bureau. This is a special procedure in which the bureaus are requested to delete a bankruptcy before the seven or ten years reporting period. Credit standing is an essential requirement that entails a credit score of 625 or above, payment of debts on time, and meeting the demands of creditors. If you want to go for this form, complete the early exclusion request forms of Transunion, Experian, and Equifax. Attach your bankruptcy discharge documents, evidence of positive recent credit history, and a letter outlining the circumstances that led to your bankruptcy and details of the repayment plan that will be followed henceforward. An early exclusion request is not an assured method of removing the bankruptcy, however, it greatly increases the chances of doing so within 2 to 4 years of filing as opposed to 10 years.

Request for Cancellation of ‘Goodwill’ from Original Creditors

Another way to erase an early bankruptcy is to pay a visit to the creditors who provided information about the bankruptcy to credit history, for instance, credit card or auto loan. Say there is a special creditor relations manager with whom you would want to discuss the possibility of having the bankruptcy deleted on goodwill. Highlight that though you have in the past had problems when it came to taking financial responsibilities seriously now want to start by clearing any outstanding balances. This leaves goodwill with those creditors and the likelihood that one or some will help request the credit bureaus to remove the bankruptcy listing associated with the payments made over a year ago. If they do not agree at first, the initiative continues to try every few months to secure the goodwill deletion.

Threatening to Pay Money to Get the Ads to Disappear

Another method is earning that you will pay back some or all of the discharged debts if the creditors agree to remove the bankruptcy from your credit report in case other methods of dispute have not worked out when attempting several times. You can call back each creditor and each collection agency that reported your bankruptcy to ask if they will be willing to delete the entry from your credit reports if you agree to begin paying it. Sometimes, even if you can afford to pay little each month towards those old debts at first, creditors may take those good faith offers and report to the credit bureaus to strike bankruptcy after only a few regular payments. This is as good as encouraging new payments in exchange for the deletion you desire. The reality then is that over a year or two of making those small repayments, your bankruptcy discharge might be cleared way before the 7 to 10-year reporting period.

Conclusion

It is frustrating to see that a single bankruptcy, causes a credit score to be reduced for nearly a decade, and restricts economic choices. In the United States, bankruptcies remain on the reports for certain specific durations as prescribed by the law, but there are strategies to apply for the discharge earlier by disputing it continually and even using courteous communications. Starting from the discharge of the bankruptcy for 12 months, if you show a responsible attitude toward the financial issue and begin the process of removing the bankruptcy for several years until several methods are used, the removal of the bankruptcy will occur years ahead of waiting for the time to elapse. For the next few months be persistent in dealing with the issues and creditors negotiations and you will significantly shorten the time it will take to get your credit reports cleared of the bankruptcy that is burdensome to you.