Ash Cash featured in Credit.com Article “When Can I Get a Bankruptcy Off My Credit Report?”
Can You Speed up the Removal Process?
Under some circumstances it may actually be possible to get a bankruptcy removed from your credit report sooner than expected.
“There is a big misconception that bankruptcy cannot be removed from a credit report and that you have to sit out seven to 10 years,” says Ash Exantus, director of financial education and a financial empowerment coach at BankMobile. “The truth of the law or the way law is written, there’s a maximum amount of time a bankruptcy can remain on your report, but there is no minimum amount of time.”
In other words, there’s nothing stopping you from getting that bankruptcy removed before seven to ten years.
How do you do that exactly? File a dispute with the three credit bureaus.
Review your bankruptcy filing and the items related to your bankruptcy that appear on your credit report carefully, advised Exantus. If you find any incorrect information, you can file a dispute.
“If there is anything that’s inaccurate on a credit report, it must be removed,” Exantus continued. “The bankruptcy has to be reported correctly. You want to make sure that’s the case. Names, social security numbers, personal information, must all be reported correctly. Any error in the way it was reported is grounds for having it removed from your credit report.”
In addition, when you file a dispute with the credit bureau it must be verified and validated in order for it to remain on your credit report. If the items you are disputing were not verified properly or if they are not verified within 30 days of your dispute by the credit bureaus, they must be removed from the report and this includes bankruptcies.