Despite what some unscrupulous credit repair companies would have you to believe, all legal strategies to repair your credit will take some time. How long credit restoration takes depends on what your credit file looks like right now and how much time and money you can devote to improving your credit.
If you see a company advertising that they can clear up your credit over night, you should understand that there is no legal way to do this. You simply cannot legally create a new credit identity without breaking the law. The tactic of file segregation is a method of fast credit repair, but this strategy is completely illegal and will result in you facing criminal charges when you are caught.
Anyway, negative items reported on your credit report usually have fixed durations. For example, most late payments and many other negative entries are allowed to stay on your credit report for seven years. A bankruptcy – either Chapter 7 or Chapter 13 – stays on your credit report for ten years and really cannot be removed by any means other than waiting for this time period to expire. For many of the seven year items, they can sometimes be removed faster depending on the individual circumstances involved. For example, if the creditor no longer exists (went out of business) and is therefore unable to substantiate a reported item, challenging the item may result in the item being removed well in advance of the seven year period.
Further you have to keep in mind that your credit scores can be raised through positive action as well as reduced by negative ones. Therefore, even if you cannot remove all of the negative items from your report immediately, you can somewhat offset their effect by doing things that increase your credit score. A good example of this is maintaining long standing revolving credit accounts (credit card accounts) and keeping the balance consistently paid off. Having credit available but unused boosts your score, especially when it comes to revolving credit. If you have had a bankruptcy, getting credit cards after bankruptcy is one of the best things you can do. Likewise, you can also pay off your outstanding debt which will also increase your score to an extent. Although the debt will still be listed on your credit report, it will be listed specifically as paid, which improves your overall standing.
Photo by lusi **Courtesy of sxc.hu
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