The Basic Steps to Credit Repair

     The following are the basic steps to credit repair. These steps should be followed in approximately the order that they are listed to give you the most effective and logical approach to impact your credit report.

    * Get your credit report and review it. This credit report must have all three credit bureaus so that you see all the accounts that are being report by your creditors (not all creditors report to all three bureaus). Get your free credit report.

    * Make a copy of your report and do not write on it, this copy you'll send to the credit bureaus - they want a clean copy. On your other copy, mark all items you consider to be questionable or negative.

    * Make a list of each item you want to dispute on a separate sheet of paper. Make sure you clearly identify each item from your report that you want dispute, including an explanation about why you dispute the information, account number (s), dates, and balances. Make sure you look at: account opened dates, dates of last activity, credit limits, amounts owed. If any of this information is incorrect you should ask for a deletion.

      If you are recovering from a Bankruptcy, you need to address the accounts that have the bankruptcy listed on them, before you try to get the bankruptcy off your public record section. If is possible to get the bankruptcy removed. By the way, there is no law that says that a Bankruptcy, or any other credit account information must stay on your credit report for any number of years, the Credit Laws that address consumer credit only really say that things have to come off after a certain number of years. Bankruptcies must come off your credit report after 10 years and other negative information after 7 years. The exception to these items are IRS tax liens and state tax liens and in some cases judgments like past child support.

    * Start with the first 12 most recent months. Another key to your credit score is what your last 12 months of credit history look like. If you have had collections in the past12 months, these will dramatically lower your scores. If you are qualifying for a mortgage, never payoff a collection account when it is older than 12 months until you check with your loan officer if you have a question about this. To pay off a collection that is under 12 months old, you always want to go back to the original creditor first to see if they will take payment. If they will, ask if they will write a letter stating that the account is paid and that the collection company who bought the collection to delete your account. Never pay the collection company first, and if you are going to pay the collection company, ask them to delete the account from the record.