« How Credit Inquiries Can Affect Your Credit Score
My Fifth Mistake: I started applying for credit too quickly »

How to Remove a Chapter 7 Bankruptcy From Your Credit Report

November 25th, 2007 by Ryan

Relevant topics: ,



Removing a chapter 7 bankruptcy from your credit report can be a very painful process (as you would imagine), but it is possible to do if you follow these steps. First, keep in mind that this may or may not work. As I have stated in previous articles, your individual situation will ultimately be the main determinate. Nonetheless, if you didn’t just file, this has a much better chance of working.

The first thing you need to do is dispute the bankruptcy with ALL 3 of the credit reporting agencies. Refer to my article on the best way to dispute credit report inaccuracies. If you’re lucky (extremely lucky), they will be unable to verify it and the bankruptcy will be removed. This is the best case scenario, but unlikely to happen.

If the bankruptcy is verified by the credit reporting agencies, you will need to send a procedural request letter asking them who they verified the bankruptcy with. See my example letters here. They will then respond, claiming that it was verified by the courts. No it wasn’t –the courts do not verify.

Next, as you might have guessed, you will need to contact the courts that were specified by the credit agencies. Ask them how they went about verifying the bankruptcy. They will say they didn’t verify anything. Ask for that statement in writing. After you receive the letter, mail it to the credit reporting agencies, and demand that they immediately remove the bankruptcy as they knowingly provided false information and therefore are in violation of the Fair Credit Reporting Act.

Hopefully this should do the trick and the bankruptcy will be removed promptly.

1 Star2 Stars3 Stars4 Stars5 Stars (23 votes, average: 3.65 out of 5)

Do you have a credit question?
Ask Me

Related Posts

36 Responses to “How to Remove a Chapter 7 Bankruptcy From Your Credit Report”

# devin on 11.26.07 at 6:52 pm

WOw..i almost want to file bankruptcy just so i can do this

#1 Ross on 12.02.07 at 1:54 pm

I haven’t had to ever file bankruptcy, but I’ll bookmark this just in case. I really didn’t know you could do stuff like this.

#2 beth on 12.02.07 at 2:01 pm

I just stumbled upon this page and really like everything I am reading. Thanks for all of this useful information. :) :)

#3 J.D on 12.02.07 at 2:13 pm

I waited 10 years for my bankruptcy to get off my credit report.

#4 Bill on 12.02.07 at 7:53 pm

Swell. So this is an effort to misrepresent your history and capability of honorably paying for things you want to buy?

I can see all the people who want to preserve this information are presumably not printing it out to save it for people who owe THEM money.

#5 Ryan on 12.02.07 at 8:18 pm

Bill -
Individual situations vary. I’d say almost half of the people I talk to that have filed bankruptcy had to do so because of a reason that was not their direct fault (except maybe skewed judgement –a mistake we all make from time to time). In particular, people who have co-signed on large loans for children, spouses, etc.. and the other person split. They are then burdened with loans they cannot pay and have to file bankruptcy. Credit reporting agencies have no official status, bare in mind. Furthermore, these creditors aren’t going to get their money either way. I do not advocate that people ought not honor their commitments, I merely try to keep in mind that most people with bad credit tend to be not only more happy, but more productive once they find a way to get through all of the outrageous hurdles that are currently in place.

#6 The Carnival of Personal Finance #129 | Cash Money Life on 12.03.07 at 4:43 am

[...] Better Credit Blog presents, How to Remove a Chapter 7 Bankruptcy From Your Credit Report, and says, Removing a chapter 7 bankruptcy from your credit report can be a very painful process [...]

#7 Keewook Song on 12.23.07 at 6:26 am

I was wondering if anyone has tried this process and succeeded.

#8 Yolanda on 04.01.08 at 9:07 am

Hi all! Personally an employee of Trans Union for over 8 years as a business analyst not in consumer relations I do agree with the information passed on here. Credit agencies donot call bankruptcy court houses which is very true. Which opens the door to start your dispute as a consumer with FCRA rights as your defense. In my opinion this is very likely to accomplish with tremendous efforts. I would agree if you follow his/her instructions that chapter 7 judgement is very likely to fall off in the public record area. It may take 60-120 days to succeed. How the Chapter 7 debt is revised? I am not sure about from a credit scoring aspect. Which is very important concerning your scores/debt to ratio. Because we have to keep in mind every creditor added to your bankruptcy is indicated individualy on the credit report. How is the debt listed under the bankruptcy concerning the $0 owed verses the balances originally owed? Anyone who has succeeded with positive results disputing the bankruptcy off thier credit report? Please share your experience here with us. Thanks!

#9 madalyn on 04.17.08 at 9:18 am

My husband and I are currently looking to purchase a home and althought the income is there, we have a problem with his prior bankkruptcy in 2002. We are looking into having his credit repaired, but i am worndering if this has worked for anyone before we start soeone else to repair it.

#10 juan on 04.26.08 at 9:29 am

Hi. My bankrupsy is over seven years old. My credit has been perfect since I filed back in 2007.
I am considering doing this, but can’t find the procedural letters in your article when I go the link.
Can you post the procedural letter you are refering to?

#11 amelial on 09.12.08 at 8:07 pm

i am wondering what letter am im suppose to use i dont see that letter to get the bankruptcy remove can you post the procedure letter

#12 Beth on 10.20.08 at 10:27 am

Hi,

I just got off the phone with the FTC, well, first TransUnion and then the FTC. TransUnion as everyone knows on this board are sons of a bitch. They argue with you and all. It’s almost like the employees think they own the company. Amazing how rude the company trains the employees to be. They have a BR dating back almost 10 years ago on my report. I sent a letter to them asking them to investigate it because I do not remember anything like that dating back 10 years, give or take a few months. They sent me a letter saying, Verification Documents not Available plus some other B.S. in the letter. I just called them and said, you cannot verify the info, remove it. They said, another letter was sent out to me that verified the info. I said, how did you verify the info, the rep said, they sent a mailing. I said, you cannot just send mail on someone to a courthouse with personal information and verify information on a person, you need to go in person. This rep was not helpful at all. Couldn’t care less about my report. I told the rep to re-open the investigation and send someone in person from TransUnion to the court house to verify the info. The rep, ok, anything else, a real jerk this rep was. Then we hung up. I called the FTC; I filed a complaint against all three credit agencies. They are all running scams and the online credit services they try and get you to join are all scams. Get this; TransUnion has my Experian Score at 680. I joined the Experian service next to see if TransUnion was right, Experian has my score at 710. Now, can someone tell me why we are not filing a multi-billion dollar suit against all three agencies? We would win hands down and the people would jump on board within seconds. Any ideas??? Thanks, Beth

#13 John on 10.21.08 at 9:35 pm

Any updates on your success with removing the BK from Exp and TU? I’m thinking of trying this approach myself for my friend’s report. His BK is 7 years old, and is the only baddie on his reports. Any more hints or suggestions would be awesome.

#14 John on 10.24.08 at 10:25 pm

Thanks for the update, DM. I’ll try this for my friend. They have no BK included accounts left on their report now….just the BK. It’s over 7 years old, and everything has fallen off. Also, the address it’s tied to on TU is gone as well. I hope that makes it easier to dispute and remove.

#15 Joanne on 11.13.08 at 1:16 pm

Beth

I am so with you! I was thinking just yesterday these bureaus have way too much control and have no real liability for all the crap they do to us. I make my living in real estate and can’t refinance anything because of errors on my report that are so ridiculous it isn’t even funny, yet they have “verified” the accuracy. I stand to lose everything because of them.

There’s this other little issue about inquiries. So the bureaus trash your file, you go to apply for credit (they make money by selling your score to the lender), then get denied. So you go apply somewhere else (they again make $), get denied again, and eventually your score gets even lower from all the inquiries (that made them money), and you have to apply a dozen times to get credit that someone else (who doesn’t have a bunch of false information on their reports) could get easily. Sounds like a scam, fraud, whatever you’d like to call it but somebody should be held accountable.

If you start that lawsuit let me know! I’ll do the same…

#16 John on 11.16.08 at 12:37 am

Hmmm…..seems DM’s rather informative postings to your BK blog got deleted! Glad I saved a copy. :) What’s up with the removals? Big brother causing some issues and putting some pressure on, DM request it, or what? :( I hope you’re doing ok. J.

#17 W on 12.03.08 at 4:06 pm

After my chapter 7 was discharged in 2002, both mine and my wife’s credit reports were in shambles. We had foreclosures, charge-offs… you name it, we had it. With just a little persistence disputing all negatives with the CRAs (online, no less), I had every single negative including late payments, the foreclosure, and even public records all removed! My credit was spotless as of this past June with a 762 FICO score. This is definitely possible, and most of the work I did was just by using the CRA’s online dispute pages. The fact is that unless the original creditors don’t respond to your dispute within the required 30 days, the CRA is REQUIRED to remove the negative from your report. As slow as most corporations move these days, you can virtually have anything removed simply by disputing it.

#18 Joanne on 12.03.08 at 6:21 pm

W -

Did you dispute more than once for any/all of the inaccuracies? I’ve had a real issue with everything coming back as “already verified” every time I submit a dispute. I even had that happen with a student loan late pay, even though I was only late just recently (There was probably a late pay I disputed years earlier, but nothing recent.)

Just curious. Thanks!

#19 W on 12.03.08 at 7:26 pm

Joanne -

There were some that I had to dispute more than once. It won’t happen overnight. Seems your creditors may be more diligent than mine were. Often the ones that came back as “verified,” I found even the slightest inaccuracies to re-dispute. By the 3rd or 4th dispute, the creditor would seemingly grow weary of me and finally give in. Persistence pays off. And the beauty of it is we are well within our right to dispute as often as we feel necessary. The only other advice I would give is to keep your disputes as legitimate as possible, or else the CRA will toss anything out that they deem to be frivolous. On the other hand, some items were removed on the first try, merely by claiming the accounts never belonged to me in the first place. Good luck!

#20 Kelly on 01.13.09 at 7:11 pm

What about credit card accounts that were included in my Ch 7 banko, (on the CBR it states were included in banko) if you dispute the banko all together how do you dispute the credit cards that were included? Or should those even be on the report anymore? We were discharged back in Jan. 06. Has anyone been successful in getting the CBR to remove a Ch 7 banko?

#21 juan on 01.17.09 at 2:30 pm

Hey Ryan,

I had asked before if you could post the precudre letter you are referring to in order to remove chapter 7. On your link, there is no specific precedure letter for this. There are letters to remove other information.

Can you post this? Or which letter do you think i could use.

#22 MARKY on 02.08.09 at 5:03 pm

sure you can the PUBLIC RECORD, but the problem is you still have all those acounts that were included the discharge, does no good unless you remove those first.

#23 MARKY on 02.08.09 at 5:23 pm

u can dispute anything, its not againest the law, but getting all 3 bureaus to remove collections or lates or a BK, your in for a long fight……… your best dispute is “NOT MINE”

#24 Kyle on 02.19.09 at 1:31 pm

I have the same question as Kelly. Its fantastic that you have given us a method to dispute even the harshest of negative items, (bankruptcy) however how do we handle the items on our account that were included in the bankruptcy? What steps should we take to remove EVERYTHING? I wondered if I was actually lucky enough to have my bankruptcy removed, then what happens to all the credit cards, loans, etc that were included within it? Do I then have a right to say that they are inaccurate because I do not have a Bankruptcy on my report? OR should I be trying to remove those account prior to attempting to remove my bankruptcy?

I guess I’m so concerned and perplexed by this question because I don’t want my dispute to simply get tossed as “frivulus” and I’d like my disputes to seem as valid as possible.

Thanks to anyone who can give me some advice regarding this issue :-)

#25 W on 02.19.09 at 3:13 pm

Kyle, what I did was a full-on blitz of every negative account, including the BK public record, all at once. Sure, once the BK gets removed it’s certainly easier to use the old “no bankruptcy” dispute on your accounts. But, even while the BK is listed in your public record section, use other disputes such as “not my account” or other inaccuracies, however slight they may be. Don’t wait for the BK to be removed before you dispute everything else. That’s valuable time you’d be wasting, when you could have more collective success disputing everything in one fell swoop. I highly recommend you do your disputes online at first. Most of my success was achieved on the first try with an online dispute. And go to the trouble of writing dispute letters only when creditors verify their accounts with that particular CRA.

#26 Kyle on 02.19.09 at 8:06 pm

W,

Thanks for your response. I will definitely try going about this online first. Should I say that the BK simply “isn’t my account” as well as the saying that the other negative accounts “aren’t my account(s)”? I guess my question is, is that the easiest and best dispute argument to make (not my account), or is there a better argument to make?

Thanks again for your advice!!

:-)

-Kyle

#27 geneo on 02.21.09 at 7:19 pm

misrepresent . lol . what do the bureaus do?? all three have my address spelled a different way . i have accounts listed with different balances thats ok?? its just amazing so many people dont get it .. The bureaus have these rules so you dont dispute , they dont care about your credit, call them sometime its all a sales pitch ..

#28 Ryan on 02.21.09 at 7:27 pm

why would the credit bureaus care about your credit? that’s your responsibility…

#29 Lou on 03.14.09 at 11:10 am

Hi!
I filed for BK in 08/03 and it was discharged in 12/03. I got my yearly report from the three CRAs, and the only negative info is the BK under public records since I’ve been disputing all negative accounts for a long time. I was wondering if I can dispute the BK online as “not mine” since it’s been more than 6 yrs and there is no negative account indicating that it was included in BK anymore. Thanks

#30 Amy on 03.24.09 at 10:12 pm

Cannot find the sample form for the procedural request…can u shoot me an e-mail with it? Or tell me where its at…go to the place where u pull up and only 4 of them and not any of them. Or post the procedure request letter you are referring to in order to remove chapter 7. On your link, there is no specific procedure letter for this. There are letters to remove other information.

#31 sam on 05.05.09 at 6:16 pm

How long after being discharged can i dispute my bankrupcy?

#32 Mike on 05.30.09 at 11:20 pm

Let me be the first to say that the steps mention in the blog, do have the chance of working. I filed Chap 7 in Nov 2004 and it was discharged Jan 06. In the summer of 07, I began to go on a credit cleanse to have those negative accounts claimed in my BK removed by disputing them (some more than once) with all 3 CRA’s and it worked. I went from having 17 or more negative items, to one or two hanger on’s who just won’t give up knowing good and well they aren’t getting paid, so I guess they figure they will ruin me by staying on my report but we will see about that!

Just this past month, I just decided to try and see if I could dispute the Chap. 7 on my report. So I did so through Equifax online. Imagine to my surprise the results of my dispute came back less than the 30 day required timeframe as stated in the FCRA, and the Chap 7 was DELETED! My score shot up from 630 to 706! I didn’t have to go through the procedural letter process mentioned. I am going to see if luck can strike again with Experian and Transunion who are the worst! I will keep everyone posted with an outcome. Put it is possible to have it deleted. I am proof of that. So try it, the worse they can come back and tell you is it’s yours.

#33 CreditCare on 06.09.09 at 7:08 pm

I appreciate your information. I believe, Apart from the overall stigma that comes with declaring bankruptcy, it can prevent you from obtaining any form of credit for years to come. What’s more, bankruptcy does not necessarily alleviate all debt, and often simply restructures already existing debts - leaving you on the hook for all future payments. We recommend that you avoid bankruptcy if you can.

#34 Trish on 06.09.09 at 11:16 pm

Can luck with anyone obtaining those elusive ‘procedural request’ letters??? I don’t want to start the whole process to not be able to follow thru!!! Any help appreciated…thanks!!!

#35 gunther on 06.11.09 at 3:17 pm

I think this blog is misleading people.

CR will not remove your BR and legitimate related negative entries unless there are misleading, inaccurate, unverifiable, incomplete, biased, or obsolete.

You’re dreaming if you think all that’s necessary is to say “it’s not mine, please verify” if it is in fact yours.

It’s also unlawful.

Leave a Reply


This entry was posted on Sunday, November 25th, 2007 at 11:01 pm and is filed under Bankruptcy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.