Legal Question in Credit and Debt Law in New York

Re: Three strikes on my credit report

A lien is reported for seven years from the inception of the lien. So if you have a lien dating from 2002, the CRA may report this lien until 2009. There is one interesting rule about a loan which is paid monthly; the loan remains a valid and enforceable debt through the time that you last paid and/or the time that the loan was "written off." So if the loan was written off in 2003, then the lien should not be reported after 2010.

Writing off a loan means that the loan originator has ceased to attempt to collect and that it is planning to sell that debt to another entity. That other entity may be in the business of collecting old debts. Your job is to trace that debt and ensure that the origination/charge off date of that debt does not change (that is, if it was charged off in 2002, such date does not change).

Disputing the debt over and over is a good idea, as paperwork gets lost and the debt collector may have trouble validating the loan to the credit reporting agency; however once they are able to validate the debt, that debt can go back on your credit report.

Funny thing about credit reports; is that each owner of the debt (first CitiFinancial, then perhaps another owner of the debt) could report the same debt on your credit report. To ensure that all instances of this debt are erased, you may have to wait the seven years. By the way, make sure you do not make any payments on this debt, as that act validates the existence of the debt.