Does It Take Seven Years to Expunge Your Credit?

The manner in which you handle credit and debt plays a critical role in maintaining your creditworthiness. Creditors report late payments and debt settlements to TransUnion, Equifax and Experian, the main credit reporting agencies in the United States. Public records such as judgments and bankruptcies also appear on your credit reports. These entries can negatively impact your credit score. Although you cannot expunge legitimate credit and payment information, negative entries do not stay on your credit report indefinitely.

Payment History

When a creditor reports a late payment to the credit bureaus, it stays on your reports for seven years from the date of entry. If you bring your account current and continue making your payments on time, your credit reports will show a clean payment history after seven years. However, each time you make a payment over 30 days late, it shows up as a new negative entry that remains on your report for an additional seven years.

Judgments

If a creditor sues you for a debt and obtains a legal judgment against you, the creditor will report the judgment to the credit bureaus. Judgments are not subject to the seven-year rule until the judgment has expired or has been paid in full. The judgment typically stays on your report for seven years after expiration or full payment. The expiration of a judgment is determined by your state's statute of limitations - in some states, the statute of limitations is 20 years or longer. However, most states allow creditors to renew a judgment before expiration, which resets the statute of limitations. If you do not pay a judgment and the creditor opts for successive renewals, the judgment may stay on your report for the rest of your life.

Bankruptcies

If you file for bankruptcy protection to eliminate or reorganize your debt, the bankruptcy report files the bankruptcy report as public record. It also appears on your credit report for 10 years after the date of discharge.

Erroneous Reports

Although you cannot actively expunge legitimate entries on your credit reports, you can take steps to have erroneous entries removed from your reports. If you discover an error, such as an entry for a debt you have already paid, you can send a letter to each of the credit bureaus requesting review of the entry. The credit bureaus will conduct investigations to determine if the entries were reported in error. If they determine that the entries are erroneous, they will remove them from your credit report, typically within 30 days of issuance of a determination.