If you have a default judgment it means that a lender has sued you in order to recover payment of an outstanding debt. It is a legal proceeding that gives a lender a large amount of time to collect on the debt.

A judgment gives the debt collector up to 20 years to collect on a debt. This is beyond the 7 year statue of limitations that applies to most debts. Often judgments are granted on unsecured debts.

It is also becoming common for debt collectors to renew judgments. This means after 20 years if they have still been unable to collect the debt, they can renew the judgment and have the authority to collect on the debt for another 20 years.

Judgments will hurt your Credit »”>credit score. You should also know that if you pay a judgment it will not be deleted from your credit report.

When a judgment is paid it changes the listing to satisfied judgment. A satisfied judgment is still a derogatory listing and will still hurt your credit score.

In order to delete a judgment you should dispute it. This means you are saying the judgment is inaccurate or invalid.

The judgment must be disputed directly with the credit bureaus. This is done by sending a dispute letter to the credit bureaus.

If a judgment is not verified as accurate it must be deleted by the credit bureaus. Often when listings are disputed they are removed regardless of their accuracy.

This is because it costs the debt collectors money to verify the accuracy or validity of a listing. Often debt collectors are unwilling to spend the money to verify a negative listing.

However you will have trouble getting the credit bureaus to investigate the listing. This is because it costs the credit bureaus potential profits to investigate listings.

Thus some individuals have found it beneficial to hire a professional credit repair firm to dispute the listings on their behalf.