Effective This Week: Tax Liens, Judgments Removed from Credit Reports, per New Policy!

There is good news for millions of households across America. The three major credit reporting agencies, Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion, have agreed to remove tax lien and civil judgement data from some consumer credit records, if the reports have incomplete information. Beginning this month, the public records data the firms use must include these data points: the consumer's name, address, and either a social security number or a date of birth. Existing reports that fail to comply will be struck from the consumer's credit record and new data that does not have that information will not be added. This change, could boost credit scores for millions of consumers and cause potential problems for lenders.

Lenders weigh credit scores carefully in making decisions about loan terms and how much consumers can borrow. FICO estimates the changes will cause improvement to about 12 million consumer scores; however the boost is estimated to be less than 20 points. Reviews have shown tax liens and civil judgement are most common credit reporting errors.

The change is scheduled to take effect this month (July 2017).

Source: www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/03142017_credit_reports_scores.asp, realtormag.realtor.org/daily-news/2017/03/15/could-boost-millions-credit-scores,