Default Judgment - What Is It & How Do I Get It Off My Credit?

A default judgment on your credit report is a very serious mark and will almost certainly ruin your score! You don't however just have to live with this mark, first lets discuss what it is and what it means.

This happens when you are sued by a lender for example a credit card company. When you accept the card in the fine print you gave them permission to sue you in a court of law should you stop making payments. The lender has filed a civil court case against you for the alleged debt.

You should have been notified but it is not uncommon for you to be completely unaware of the impending court case. However you are still responsible to appear in court regardless of your knowledge of it or not, if you do not show then a default judgment is placed against you.

You are given typically 30 days by the court to pay the lender or make arrangements, but if you are unaware of this proceeding it makes it difficult to resolve the matter. This is a serious situation and depending on what state you live in you could have liens placed against your property or even have your wages garnished! In other words before you even get your paycheck you could have money already taken out to pay back this debt! It is important to know that filing a civil case is usually the last step a collection agency or lender will take to recover a debt.

How Do I Get This Off My Credit?

This depends on exactly where you are in the process. If you have a court case coming up you can make arrangements with the lender that you will settle with them and in exchange they must stop reporting this negative item to the credit bureaus. This is a normal request and the lender will not have a problem agreeing to this.

After you make your payments you then dispute the negative item with the credit bureaus. The bureaus will then investigate and they will contact the lender to ask them to verify the debt. However the lender will not verify the debt because of your settlement agreement. Then the bureau will remove the item from your report!

If you have missed your court date and are within this 30 day window you may still be able to negotiate the same terms. And if you are past the court date but have paid this debt then you should be able to dispute the bureaus and have it removed because the lender is not going to spend the time and money verifying an old debt that they have already collected on. It makes no financial sense for them to continue to record or keep track of it, or spend the man hours to look it up if it's a closed out account.

In sum, a default judgment is a terrible mark to have on your credit and almost certainly defines your credit worthiness to future lenders as being a bad risk! However you don't just have to live with this mark, you can take action and have it removed no matter where you are in the process.