How To Remove Bankruptcy From A Credit Report

NORWOOD, MA, April 22, 2013

As the dust settles after a debtor files for bankruptcy, questions and inquiries begin to arise relating to removing any negative credit data or hint of a recent bankruptcy filing. Irwin Pollack, President of Boston, Massachusetts-based Patriot Bankruptcy, encourages clients to focus on three key issues relating to prior bankruptcy information and how they can protect their credit reports given the alleged financial fresh start:

1. You don't have to do anything in order for your bankruptcy or any included accounts to be removed automatically. Chapter 7 bankruptcies are deleted ten years from the filing date and Chapter 13 bankruptcies are normally deleted seven years from the filing date.

2. What many people fail to understand is how there is not just one credit score and there is more than just one credit reporting agency. You are well-advised to get a copy of your credit report from all three credit reporting agencies - Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion. Review each, and take a proactive approach toward cleaning up any inaccurate or incomplete data.

3. Know the law and when items can be removed from your credit report. Items can only remain on your credit report for a specific amount of time. You can notify the credit bureaus to remove items once their time has passed.

Lawyers regularly sue credit reporting agencies and the companies that provide information about you for errors they refuse to correct. This is particularly true when it comes to dealing with post-bankruptcy issues.

Here's the most important point relating to removing bankruptcy information from your credit report:

Under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, you have the right to dispute the accuracy of your credit file. When a credit reporting agency receives your dispute, it must reinvestigate and record the current status of the disputed items within a "reasonable period of time," unless it believes the dispute is frivolous or irrelevant. Pollack interprets the rule to read, "if the agency cannot verify a disputed item, it must delete it."

Since bankruptcy records are often moved to some warehouse of files after a year or two, they can many times be difficult to find or locate. If your records cannot be verified, they must be deleted from your report. Alternatively, you can always hope that the credit bureau is so busy with disputes and investigations that they don't have the support staff to verify and check your inquiry. In some cases, it may be easier for them to just delete the entry.

Patriot Law Group
11 Vanderbilt Avenue
Norwood, MA 02062
Website: www.irwinpollack.com