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Dealing With Negative Credit Report Information

Federal law specifies how long negative information may remain on your credit report. To prevent you from paying for past credit mistakes forever, the Fair Credit Reporting Act regulates that negative information can be reported for seven years and bankruptcies for ten years. This includes late payments, accounts that a credit grantor turned over to a collection agency and judgments filed against you in court – even if you later paid the account in full. Judgments may be refiled after they expire and, if so, will be reported as a new judgment. The date of filing for a public record or date of the first missed payment is what the credit bureaus go by when deleting information from your credit report.

The length of time a bankruptcy remains on your credit report depends upon which chapter you file. Chapters 7, 11 and 12 remain on your credit report for 10 years. Chapter 13, by policy of the credit reporting agencies, remains on your credit report for seven years.