How long will judgement upset my credit scores?

Judgments on Credit Records
The Fair Credit Reporting Act [15 USC Section 1681c]

(a)Information excluded from consumer reports...

(2)...civil judgments...that from date of entry, antedate the report by more than seven years or until the governing statute of limitations has expired, whichever is the longer period.

So, 7 years from the date of entry, or longer, if your state has legislation which allows it report longer.

Here is input from others:

A judgment remains on a consumer's credit report for 7 years from the "date of entry, or until the governing statute of limitations has expired, whichever is longer". This time period applies to each legal action. Under certain circumstances and certain state's laws, judgments can be renewed. The renewal of a judgment would allow it to show on a credit report for 7 years from the date of renewal, if allowed by state law.

Generally seven, although most judgments are renewable in which case it could be on a cr a very long time. If paid it would be listed as "satified" and be expunged after the 7 years expired.

Hi Plow
As per the fair credit reporting act, a judgment which has been put against you stays on your credit report for seven years from the date of entry or until the SOL in your state has expired.

It will stay on your report for 7 years, however after 2 years it will not has as much an effect as it did when it was new.

I don't think so creditcardwarehouse. As far as I know, Negative information affects credit score for seven years and this is the only reason why people with negative elements in credit reports try to go for pay for deletion agreement.

After two years the account is considered stale. That is why if you do a DV and they update it you will see a drop in your credit score. As I said before after two years it will not have as much an effect as a new collection but it will still have an effect. Obviously if you get this removed you will still see a big bump in your score but also as the debt ages it also has less of an effect.

ABout how much of a decrease after two years? I had a claim filed against me in a landlord dipute bank in 2004 and I was curious how much weigh it still carried. Also, is it also normal that only TU is reporting it?

Probably only 5-10 points if that. I think i saw a decrease of 20 but i disputed six things. And this was a year ago. It is def. worth trying to get them removed. Check out my thread. GOOD METHOD TO GET ITEM REMOVED FROM CRA's

Whenever you receive summon from the court, the first thing you should do is to file an answer to the summon, else the creditor can bring a default judgment against you to recover the debt even if you do not owe the debt to the creditor. You can ask for debt validation after you file an answer to the summon. For answering the summon you need to fill up the "response to summon" form which you will get from the clerk's office from the court from where you have received the summon.

If they can validate your debt in the court and bring judgment against you to recover the debt through garnishment of your wage, you will receive a notice from the sheriff and you will have 20 days to respond. Now if you come to a repayment agreement and settle off the debt, your wage will not be garnished, else the Sheriff may serve a notice to your employer asking him to garnish your wages.

New Jersey is a wage garnishment state and wage can be garnished if the creditor can bring judgment against you. There are only 4 states in US where wage cannot be garnished. They are North and South Carolina, Texas and Pennsylvania. However, creditors can garnish bank accounts even in these 4 states.