How Long Does Adverse Information Remain on My Credit Report?

By The Kim Law Firm, LLC

Credit reports are an important tool that credit lenders use to determine if a person is creditworthy. When inaccurate or outdated adverse information is on a consumer’s credit report, that information can make it very difficult to obtain credit. This can cause a significant amount of emotional distress, especially when residential mortgages are involved. As a consumer, it is important that to be aware of what information is in your credit report, and whether any of that information is wrongfully reported.

The FCRA Governs How Long Adverse Information Can Stay on Your Credit Report

The Fair Credit Reporting Act (“FCRA”) only permits credit reporting agencies to report negative or adverse consumer information for a certain period of time. Any neutral or positive information may remain on a person’s credit report indefinitely. How long adverse information remains on a credit report depends on the specific situation. A few examples include the following:

• Bankruptcies – The statute allows a bankruptcy to be reported for ten (10) years from the date of the order for relief, which in practice is the filing date. As a matter of their own practice the bureaus remove a completed Chapter 13 after seven years from filing; a Chapter 7 stays the full ten.
• Tax Liens and Civil Judgments – The statute allows a paid tax lien to be reported for seven (7) years from the date it was paid. Since 2018, however, Equifax, Experian and TransUnion no longer include tax liens or civil judgments on credit reports at all under the National Consumer Assistance Plan, so a tax lien or judgment on one of those reports today is an error to dispute on that basis.
• Delinquent Accounts – Late payments on credit cards, car loans or a mortgage remain on your credit report for seven (7) years from the date of the delinquency. Paying the past-due amount later does not remove the entry or restart the clock.
• Criminal History – On consumer reports such as employment and tenant background checks, an arrest record may be reported for seven (7) years or until the statute of limitations on the charge has run, whichever is longer. The statute sets no time limit on reporting a conviction.
• Accounts Sent to Collection Agencies – A collection account or a charge-off may be reported for seven (7) years plus 180 days from the first delinquency on the original account that led to it — not from the date the collector bought the debt or last reported it.
• Credit Report Inquiries – If you apply for credit, your credit report will be obtained and reviewed to evaluate your creditworthiness. Inquiries themselves are reported on your credit report and may remain on your report for seven (7) years. However, most credit reporting agencies do not report inquiries for more than two (2) years.

When an item is older than the law allows

The clock is the first thing I check on a client’s report, because an obsolete item is one of the few errors that needs no argument about the underlying facts: if the date of first delinquency is more than seven years and 180 days old, the entry has to come off whether or not the debt was ever paid. Identify the date that started the clock for each item, dispute it with the bureau as obsolete in those words, and give the correct starting date. How long a collection account stays on a credit report covers the collection clock, including the re-aging trick where a collector reports its own purchase date instead of the original delinquency; the dispute letter template has the wording. A bureau that keeps reporting an item past its date after a dispute is liable under the Act. An FCRA claim must be filed within two years of the day you discovered the violation, and never more than five years after it happened. I review the file at no cost and bring these cases on contingency: you pay nothing unless we win.

Sources: 15 U.S.C. § 1681c (reporting periods) and §§ 1681n–1681p (remedies); Consumer Data Industry Association, National Consumer Assistance Plan (removal of tax liens and civil judgments from the three national bureaus’ files, completed 2018).

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Different reports, different reporting periods

The familiar seven-year rule applies to most negative credit information, but it is not the only clock running. Bankruptcies persist longer, some specialty agencies apply their own retention periods to the data they hold, and employment reports are subject to a separate set of limits that can vary with the salary level of the position. A record that has properly fallen off a credit report may still sit in a deposit account database or a screening file, which is why checking only the credit bureaus gives an incomplete picture.

• ChexSystems — retains deposit account history under its own schedule.
• Early Warning Services — holds bank-shared account and fraud records.
• Clarity Services — maintains alternative and small-dollar lending history.
• Teletrack — keeps short-term borrowing records used by subprime lenders.
• CoreLogic — reports rental and public record information to landlords.
• RealPage — supplies eviction and screening data to property managers.

Identify the date that starts the clock for each item, since for collection accounts it is the original delinquency rather than any later event, and request your file from every agency that might hold the record rather than from the credit bureaus alone. If an entry is past the period the law allows, dispute it as obsolete in those words, and say what the correct starting date is. The obligation to stop reporting expired information is not discretionary, and it does not depend on whether the underlying debt was ever paid.