You pulled your credit report, or a lender, landlord or employer turned you down, and a court judgment seems to be part of the reason. Before you do anything about it, it helps to know something many people do not: the three nationwide credit bureaus stopped carrying civil judgments years ago. So the first question is not how to get the judgment off. It is where the judgment is being reported, what exactly the entry is, and whether what it says about you is right.
The three bureaus stopped reporting civil judgments in 2017
In July 2017 Equifax, Experian and TransUnion tightened the standards that public-record data had to meet before it could go into a credit file. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau studied the result and found that after the change, civil judgments “disappeared entirely” from the bureaus’ files, while about half of tax liens came off at the same time. Experian now says it “no longer shows judgments or tax lien information as part of a consumer’s credit history,” and that bankruptcy “is now the only public record information that is collected routinely by the national credit reporting companies.”
That has a practical consequence. If you are looking at an Equifax, Experian or TransUnion report and see what you take to be a judgment, check exactly what the entry is. It may not be the court record at all. It may be the account the lawsuit was about, reported by the original creditor or by a debt buyer as a collection or a charge-off. That account is a separate item with its own clock: under 15 U.S.C. § 1681c(a)(4) and (c)(1), a collection or charge-off may be reported for seven years, counted from 180 days after the delinquency began. The statute counts from the delinquency, not from the lawsuit, so being sued does not start the clock again.
If the entry really is listed as a civil judgment in the public-records section of one of the three bureau reports, that runs against what the bureaus themselves say they carry. Ask the bureau, in writing, where it came from.
Where judgments still show up
Judgments are public records, and the bureaus leaving them out did not take them out of circulation. Experian says as much: “potential lenders may choose to search for this information from sources other than the national credit bureaus.” Two places matter.
The first is LexisNexis Risk Solutions. The CFPB’s list of consumer reporting companies describes it as supplying information to financial institutions, insurance carriers, healthcare providers and government agencies, and lists “lien, judgment, and bankruptcy records” among what its reports contain. LexisNexis also sells lenders a dedicated report of lien and civil judgment records, and tells them that “excluding lien and judgment data from your risk management could result in increased defaults.” So a lender can see a judgment that your credit report does not show. The LexisNexis consumer file page covers how to get that file and dispute it.
The second is tenant and employment screening. Screening companies report civil court records, and the Federal Trade Commission’s guidance for renters names housing court cases specifically. That is where a dismissed eviction case can surface as a judgment years later, which a dismissed eviction on a rental background check covers in detail.
Wherever the judgment appears, there is a time limit on it. Under 15 U.S.C. § 1681c(a)(2), a consumer report may not include “civil suits, civil judgments, and records of arrest that, from date of entry, antedate the report by more than seven years or until the governing statute of limitations has expired, whichever is the longer period.” The FTC puts the working rule plainly: “Most civil lawsuits and judgments, including housing court cases, and arrest records can’t be included in a report after seven years.” Three details matter. The clock runs from the date the judgment was entered. Where the governing statute of limitations runs longer than seven years, the statute says the longer period controls, not the shorter one. And under § 1681c(b) none of these time limits applies to a report prepared for a credit transaction of $150,000 or more, life insurance with a face amount of $150,000 or more, or a job paying $75,000 or more a year.
Is the judgment wrong, or is it yours? The answer decides everything
This is the fork, and it is worth being blunt about it.
If a court entered a judgment against you, it is within the reporting period, and the report describes it correctly, a dispute will not remove it, and the Fair Credit Reporting Act gives you no claim over it. Paying it does not make an accurate record disappear either. What paying does change is the status. Once a judgment is paid and the court record shows it satisfied, a report that still shows it unpaid is describing it wrongly, and that is worth disputing even though the judgment itself stays.
The disputes that get judgments removed are the ones where the report is not right in the first place. That is the situation if:
- The judgment belongs to someone else — a person with a similar name, the same surname, or a relative — and was matched to you. Someone else’s record on your background check and mixed credit files explain how that happens.
- The case was dismissed, or ended in your favor, and the report shows a judgment against you.
- The judgment was vacated or set aside by the court, and the report still carries it.
- It was paid and shows as unpaid, as above.
- The same case appears twice, for example because it moved between courts and was collected from each.
- It is older than the reporting period allows for the kind of report it is on.
- A debt collector sued you and lost, and the collection account the lawsuit was about is still on your credit report. A collection that is not yours covers the dispute on the account side.
How to dispute it
Start with the report the decision was based on. If a lender, landlord or employer turned you down, it must tell you which reporting company it used, under 15 U.S.C. § 1681m(a). The screening or reporting company must give you a free copy if you ask within 60 days of that notice, under § 1681j(b); both the FTC and the CFPB state the 60-day rule in their guidance to renters. LexisNexis provides one free report every twelve months on request, according to its CFPB listing, and the three bureaus now provide free reports every week through AnnualCreditReport.com. Read the entry before you write anything, because you are disputing that entry and not the idea of a judgment.
Then get the court record. The docket for the case, the judgment itself, and whatever changed it: the dismissal order, the order vacating the judgment, the satisfaction, or the judgment in your favor. If the judgment is someone else’s, the court record usually shows it, through a different middle name, date of birth, address or party. That is the evidence a reinvestigation can act on. “This judgment is not mine; the court record names a different person, born in a different year, at an address where I have never lived” is a sentence a reporting company can check. “This is unfair” is not.
Dispute in writing with the company that issued the report, naming the entry and saying in one sentence what is wrong with it, and attach the court record. Under 15 U.S.C. § 1681i(a)(1)(A) the company must conduct a reasonable reinvestigation, free of charge, within 30 days of receiving your dispute, and under § 1681i(a)(5)(A) it must promptly delete or modify an item it finds inaccurate or incomplete or cannot verify. Where the report is for employment, § 1681k(a) adds a specific duty for public records likely to cost you the job: the company must either tell you at the time it reports them or keep strict procedures to make sure they are “complete and up to date.” If what you are disputing is the collection account on your credit report rather than a court record, file the dispute through the bureau: that is what triggers the creditor’s or collector’s own duty to investigate under § 1681s-2(b). Keep a dated copy of everything you send and everything you receive.
When the record stays and it is still wrong
Sometimes the answer comes back “verified” on a judgment that is not yours, was dismissed, or was paid, and nothing in the report changes. That is the point at which the Act stops being about forms.
Two matters I have filed show the pattern, as described in their complaints. In a case I filed in 2023, LexisNexis reported a dismissed eviction case belonging to a woman with the same first and maiden name as a judgment against my client, and her mortgage was blocked until it came off. In a case I filed in 2022, Portfolio Recovery kept reporting a collection after a court had ruled the debt was not owed.
The duties described above are enforceable. Under 15 U.S.C. § 1681o, a reporting company or a furnisher that negligently fails to meet a requirement of the Act is liable for your actual damages, with costs and reasonable attorney’s fees. Under § 1681n, where the failure is willful, you may recover actual damages or statutory damages of $100 to $1,000, and the court may allow punitive damages, again with costs and fees. Actual damages in a judgment case are rarely abstract: a mortgage blocked or priced higher, an apartment given to someone else, a job offer withdrawn. What usually makes a case is the paper trail rather than the original mistake — the same wrong entry verified after you sent the court record that disproves it.
If a judgment on your credit report or a screening report is not yours, was dismissed, vacated or paid, or is older than the law allows, and a dispute has not fixed it, I am glad to look at it. I represent consumers in Fair Credit Reporting Act cases against credit bureaus, screening companies, and the companies that supply them with information. Admitted in Pennsylvania and New Jersey; available to appear pro hac vice in other federal courts. You pay nothing unless we win.
Related reading on this site: the LexisNexis consumer file · a dismissed eviction on a rental background check · someone else’s record on your background check · mixed credit files · how long a collection account stays on a credit report · a collection that is not yours · what to do when a credit dispute is denied · tenant screening companies · what a failed background check means · FCRA lawyer · the cases I have filed and the errors behind them.
Sources: Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Quarterly Consumer Credit Trends: Public Records (February 2018); Experian, Judgments No Longer Appear on a Credit Report (April 25, 2022) and Public Records That Can Appear on Your Credit Report (October 29, 2023); Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Consumer Reporting Companies — LexisNexis Risk Solutions (companies list) and What should I do if my rental application is denied because of a tenant screening report? (Ask CFPB); LexisNexis Risk Solutions, RiskView Liens & Judgments Report (product page, read September 30, 2026); Federal Trade Commission, Tenant Background Checks and Your Rights; 15 U.S.C. §§ 1681c(a)(2), (a)(4), (b) and (c)(1), 1681i(a)(1) and (a)(5), 1681j(b), 1681k(a), 1681m(a), 1681n, 1681o and 1681s-2(b) (United States Code).
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