Legal Question in Credit and Debt Law in North Carolina

Its not state dependent. Its a matter of federal law. The debt can stay on your credit report 7 years from the date the account was sent for collection (to an in-house or outside collector) or charged off. Charge-off is just an accounting term.

In your case, you state that the charge off was in May of 2007. If that is the case, the debt should be off your credit report by May of 2014. However, credit bureaus will remove it when you are at the 6 years and 9 months mark.

What I suggest that you do is once per year, get a free annual credit report. Space out your free reports every 4 months. By that I mean get a report from Equifax, then 4 months later get one from Experian, then 4 months later get one from Trans Union. I say to get all three because some reports might list it differently. When you know that you are near the 6 year 9 month mark you can try asking that it be removed.