With so much information available online regarding credit repair, you might begin to wonder if credit repair is possible or, for that matter, legal. In short, yes, you have the right to repair your credit and the U.S. government has even enacted laws which give you this right.

Credit Bureaus and Creditors Want You to Have Bad Credit

In the credit world, creditors and credit bureaus would like you to think that credit reporting is infallible and unchangeable. In reality, it is in their interest only for you to believe this.

Collecting or reporting debts is the lifeline of creditors and credit bureaus. If this lifeline is removed, they are in trouble. If you decide to rebuild your credit, their very livelihood is at stake. For this reason, there is a vast amount of confusion as to the practice of credit repair.

Youll never hear a lending agency tell you that you have specific legal rights under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA). Thats because the FCRA protects your legal right to dispute any negative items on your credit report.

If you decide to dispute any negative information on your credit report, the FCRA requires creditors and credit bureaus to investigate your claim and report back to you with their findings. They may take up to 30 days to investigate and, if the negative entry cannot be verified, it must be deleted. This is one way of legally rebuilding your credit and boosting your credit score.

Without Taking Steps to Fix Your Credit Reports, You May Live with Bad Credit for 7-10 Years

Instead of remaining on your credit report for up to 7 years, a negative item could be removed quickly and give you a fresh start when it comes to rebuilding your credit. If youve made the decision to repair your credit, consider contacting the experts at Lexington Law who can tell you where to start and assist you through the process of credit repair.

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More and more people are having vehicles repossessed, having their homes foreclosed upon, and falling behind on the payment of their bills. Many consumers, therefore, are looking for ways to improve their credit scores and are questioning if credit repair is legal. The short answer is “yes,” credit repair is legal, but let’s dig a little deeper than that.

It seems today that the number of companies who say they can repair credit has increased significantly. These companies can be located on the internet with little difficulty and people wanting to repair their credit are continually seeking out these companies to obtain their help.

There are some companies who will do little to improve your credit and certainly cannot live up to their outlandish claims. However, there are some companies who can help improve your credit and will do so legally.

If a company claims it can remove court judgments and bankruptcies from your credit history, don’t believe them! While this can be done, it can only be done if there is a significant reason for doing so. One such reason would be if the bankruptcy wasn’t yours and was applied to your credit history by mistake. A bankrutpcy will typically remain on your credit report for up to ten years and, if you have actually filed bankruptcy, then there is no LEGAL way to remove it.

Do-it-yourself credit repair is actually something you might try. There is no hidden secret to repairing your credit and you will, in fact, save yourself money doing it on your own.

To start your credit repair journey, it is essential that you obtain a copy of your credit report. Equifax, TransUnion, and Experian, the three major credit reporting bureaus, are required to provide you with one copy of your credit report, upon your request, each year. You can also call (877) 322-8228 and request a copy of your credit history from a representative of Annual Credit Report.

Once you receive a copy of your credit history, you should sit down and review it carefully. You need to check all information on the credit report for false or inaccurate information. If anything is incorrectly reported, you should write the credit reporting bureau and request that the inaccurate or false information be removed or revised. You will need to provide the credit reporting agency with any documentation which substantiates your claim. Be sure to retain copies of all correspondence to and from the credit reporting agency.

You can do everything the credit repair companies are capable of doing. They cannot remove accurate information and neither can you. However, on the flip side, you are capable of removing the same negative entries which these companies can remove.

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If you are having some difficulties with your credit and your credit score could use a lift, there are some steps that you can take to repair your credit. In 1970, the FCRA or the Fair Credit Reporting Act was enacted and it gives you the right to dispute inaccurate or invalid credit.

You can appoint a honest credit repair company to assist you with your credit repair or you can also try to do it on your own. If you hire a expert make sure that you check out their credentials to make sure that they are decent.

Credit repair can take time. You will need to proffer disputes in writing and give the bureaus time to investigate. After a dispute is issued, the bureaus have 30 days to investigate and an additional 5 days to answer back to you. If they are incapable to validate the accuracy of the information then it must be removed. Many times you may need to write more than one correspondence of dispute in order to get the results that you are looking for.

Credit report disputes can take awhile but there are a few other ways that you can enhance your credit score as you go. Many of these are just commonsensical but folks are not conscious of them because they are not accustomed with how credit scores are calculated.

A major portion of your credit score is based upon your debt to existing credit ratio. Carrying a great balance on your credit cards is very injurious to your score. A maxed-out credit card can bring down your score by as many as 150 points! If you pay down your balance owed to less than 20% of your available balance it will give your score an instant improvement. Even dropping it to 40% or lower will make a big modification. The best credit scores belong to the people who have available credit but don’t use it.

Another thing that can make a large difference in your scores is collection accounts. Collectors are not the same as the original creditors. They in fact acquire and sell collection accounts. When they buy the account they are supposed to report it to the credit bureaus, which they most often do. However, they are also expected to report it to the credit bureaus when they sell the account, but they often don’t. If you have collection accounts on your report, many of them may not even be legal anymore, as the collector may not even own the account now. If they are invalid you can get them deleted.

If you have collection accounts that are legal you can try to cooperate with the collection agencies. They may be willing to settle for pennies on the dollar right now because of the difficult economy that we are all facing. Ask if they will delete the account from your report entirely in exchange for a lump sum pay-off. They might just say “yes”.

A couple of other things to think about trying are asking the creditors to raise your limits, which will certainly lower your debt to accessible credit ratio. Because of the present decline this may not be practical but even if they say no you haven’t lost anything. You should also get rid of all of your store credit cards. These cards are never beneficial for your credit score and they also carry higher interest rates. Even little things can make a big modification on a credit score so take the steps to repair your credit today.

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