Reader’s Question

Hello,
I have some negative items that will soon be at their seven year limit and will (hopefully) be removed from my credit report. Can you tell me which credit agency informs you of an estimated date when an item will be removed? Also I was wondering at what point do they start the 7 year “countdown?”

Response

Hi [name removed] -
When you get your credit report directly from Experian, they will include the estimated removal date. I don’t think the other agencies do this. To understand the 7 year “countdown” try to imagine all of your credit entries as bricks in a wall. Most of them are good entries, but scattered throughout the wall there are a few bad bricks. Now imagine that every year a new row is added to the bottom –pushing the other rows up one. Basically, when one of the “bad bricks” hit the seventh row, they are removed. So in that way, its seven years from the date it was added.

Hope this helps,
Ashley