Credit report question - Chapter 7

[ellis2156]

After your chapter 7 closes, does the credit report continue to show the list of creditors that were included in bankruptcy or does it does show discharged and/or closed notice and they are removed? I am waiting closing and just want to know what to look for. I was discharged in June.

[justbroke]

The creditors should still show as Included In Bankruptcy (IIB) with a $0 balance. They are not removed unless the creditor chooses to do so. You could also dispute the entries and they may be removed during that process. Again, it's up to the creditor to validate the information. If any information is incorrect, then you would need to dispute that information.

[stevie2012]

What justbroke said.

[bcohen]

Before I filed, I had about 5-6 bad debts on my credit reports. After discharge, only 3, all showing $0 balance owed. I disputed the payment history of one (a JDB who purchased my Citibank Mastercard) on the grounds that they continued to report an ongoing charge-off through the month of my discharge, which is not legal. The entire account was deleted from the report. I am now disputing that account with the other credit bureaus. My civil judgment also shows "paid" even though I simply included the underlying debt (Discover Card) in my BK. I never paid a penny toward it!

[IBroke]

My civil judgment also shows "paid" even though I simply included the underlying debt (Discover Card) in my BK. I never paid a penny toward it!

Let me guess - it's Equifax who is reporting it as "paid", right? I'm pretty sure it is because Experian tends to completely remove all judgments that were IIB right after filing and TransUnion only reports them as "Judgment in Bankruptcy" and even keeps on reporting the $-amount of the liability which really s**ks big time. TransUnion was the reason why I went ahead and vacated my judgment after BK.

[bcohen]

Yes, on my Transunion report, it still says the dollar amount of the judgment ($6068), but it also says "Type: CIVIL JUDGMENT IN BANKRUPTCY" and "Date Paid: 04/12/2013" which was the date I filed for Chapter 7. Are you saying that this is not sufficient to make a prospective employer/lender see that the judgment is not owed anymore? On the Pima County Justice Court records viewable online, there is no entry saying "paid".

[IBroke]

Yes, on my Transunion report, it still says the dollar amount of the judgment ($6068), but it also says "Type: CIVIL JUDGMENT IN BANKRUPTCY" and "Date Paid: 04/12/2013" which was the date I filed for Chapter 7. Are you saying that this is not sufficient to make a prospective employer/lender see that the judgment is not owed anymore? On the Pima County Justice Court records viewable online, there is no entry saying "paid".

It should be sufficient. Keep in mind though that the judgment won't be updated to "paid" in the court records because it isn't paid. It is still a judgment but can't be enforced. Consider it "frozen".

The issue I'm having with the way TransUnion reports IIB-judgments is the fact that they are reporting the liability. They do explain that the consumer is not liable for it after BK BUT this explanation is not part of the reported public record. It is a side note above the entire list of public records - and this side note is NOT reported to third party report providers like myFICO etc.

So if an employer doesn't have the knowledge about the legal background of a judgment in bankruptcy and he's pulling your file from a third party data provider, this might cause some problems.

But there is nothing we can do about it since TransUnion is not reporting inaccurate information.