To maximize your credit score and make yourself more credit worthy you can eliminate any credit judgments that you may have on your credit report.
If you have unsettled debts just sitting there on your report for too long, then you are increasing the risk of the creditor taking you to court to get a credit judgment. Credit judgments are a court order that calls for payment from you on a contract or obligation you made. A credit judgment is the "ultimate validation" of your owed debt because a judge has usually reviewed documentation and has ruled that the debt is in fact valid.
One of the other biggest impairments of having any credit judgments is that it can be nearly futile to get supplements of credit with unpaid credit judgments on your credit reports; especially if you are striving to get a mortgage for a home, since a credit judgment can tie itself to your real estate.
There are various ways to remove credit judgments:
1. File a Motion to Vacate
If this is what you choose, you will need to learn about court procedures in your area. However, understand that if the courts grants your vacate request the credit judgment should be erased from your credit report rather quickly.
2. Check for the Statute of Limitations for your State.
In Texas, the statute of limitation on judgments is 10 years, but can be revamped within 2 years after expiration. Maximum interest rate on a judgment is 8.25% which is lower than the previous 10%.
Usually a credit judgment will remain on your credit report for 7 years; but for 20 years they can still be collected on. If the credit judgment remains open and has not been collected, then after the 20 years is gone it is still easy to get an extension.
You can dispute the credit judgment as being "obsolete" when your state's limits on the statute of limitations has been exceeded. Your credit judgments will be erased.
3. Mediate a Removal
A different way to remove credit judgments is to negotiate with the creditor that the judgment is open with. You need to try to get them to dismiss (remove it completely from your credit report) the credit judgment by paying it in full. This is much better than just paying it off because the credit judgment will just be updated on your credit report as "paid" and it will still be on your credit report.
Wish you well.
