The FICO system of creating credit ratings means that every item reported on your credit report can significantly reduce your credit score; therefore every individual item reported should be taken seriously. Having a clean credit report is important and can save your thousands of dollars a year.
One commonly overlooked group of reported items that can sometimes be removed relates to old items that should have been removed from your credit report but have not been. Having clean credit can be difficult, but being sure that old items are removed in a timely manner can certainly help.
With the exception of bankruptcies and tax liens, most items on your credit report should be removed after seven years. This means seven years from the date of last activity, not seven years from the date that it was originally reported. For example, a collection will stay on your credit report for seven years beginning with the date that the account last had activity, not the date that it was initially reported. Despite these time limitations on reported items, more often than not it falls on the individual to ensure that items are removed from their credit report in a timely manner as opposed to the credit reporting agencies. This is often an easy way to clean credit up.
The Big Three credit reporting agencies – Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion – all maintain their own separate databases and receive their reported information from their own unique sources. Consequently, each of these three credit reports is likely to contain different reported items. Since maintaining these databases also tends to be a massive undertaking, removing old items is often overlooked by the credit reporting agencies until the client specifically points out that certain items should be removed.
As a matter of good credit practices, most savvy people routinely review their credit reports at least once a year looking for items that have been added in error or that should be contested. Check your Credit Report and Score – Fast, Free & Easy at CreditReport.com.
However, many people also tend to overlook their old items because they are on every credit report year after year. The dates of old items should also be kept track of and once an item should be removed, it is a good idea to send the credit reporting agency an active reminder that the item should be removed from your credit report. Failure to actively highlight items that should be removed will often result in the items remaining on your credit report – and affecting your FICO score – indefinitely. Therefore being sure to have old items removed is a great step towards cleaning your credit!
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