Removing an auto repossession from you credit report is only possible under strict circumstances outlined under U.S. law. The length of time the repossession has been on your report impacts whether a credit bureau will delete it. Still, some unscrupulous companies insist they can remove bad debts from consumers' credit files when they have no authority to do so.
Credit Regulations
No one can legally remove accurate information about an auto repossession from your credit report. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) warns consumers not to work with credit-repair companies that promise to erase repossessions and other bad debts from credit reports. The Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) allows you to dispute inaccurate information contained in your credit files, but correct information about a repossession remains on your credit report for seven years.
Automatic Removal
Credit bureaus should automatically remove outdated information about an auto repossession from your credit file seven years after the first date of delinquency reported to credit bureaus by your lender, according to Experian. You can dispute an outdated repossession with any credit bureau that's reporting it. However, you would need old loan statements or other documentation to prove the repossession has been on your credit report more than seven years after the first date of delinquency. You may have to contact the lender to verify that date if you don't have the necessary documentation.
Dispute Process
The FTC indicates that the rights provided to consumers under the FCRA make it unnecessary to hire a credit-repair company to dispute inaccurate data in your credit files. The law requires credit bureaus to investigate information in your credit files that you dispute at no charge. The FCRA holds credit bureaus and lenders responsible for correcting or removing incomplete, inaccurate and outdated information in consumers' credit reports. A credit bureau also must inform you about the results of its investigation after you file a dispute.
Considerations
You can lessen the impact a repossession has on your credit rating, even though you can't legally get it removed from your credit report if it's less than seven years old. Pay down your other debts as much as possible, avoid accumulating new debts and keep your payments current on your other accounts. Those steps can improve your credit score before a repossession is removed from your credit files, according Experian.
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