A late payment is any payment made after the date due, which often results in a negative mark against your credit score. Most bills, such as credit card payments, auto loans, and mortgages, give you a grace period after the due date. However, this grace period (and its existence) varies from institution to institution.
But, late payments happen, and they can happen to anyone. There are ways to remove late payments that show up on your credit report, which is one way you can clean up your credit report. Credit repair services in Houston, Texas connect people like you with professionals who can help build your financial literacy and repair your credit.
How Long Late Payments Stay on Credit Reports
When do late payments fall off your credit report? Late payments, like all items on your credit reports, remain there for a maximum of seven years. Any items for later payments older than seven years must be removed from your report.
Sometimes, bureaus make mistakes. Sometimes late payments stay longer on reports than they should, or a payment is marked as late when it was paid in full, on time. When this happens, you can notify your credit bureau to get the outdated or inaccurate information off of your report.
What to Do If Your Late Payment Item Is Inaccurately Reported
As you review your credit reports, you may find late payments that are inaccurately reported or outdated. Remember, any items older than seven years old should be removed from your credit report.
Check your credit report for inaccuracies, such as:
- Incorrect identification: If you notice a name misspelling, inaccurate Social Security Number, or inaccurate birth date, it could indicate someone else’s information and items are on your credit report. This happens when creditors accidentally mistype information, or confuse someone else with the same name or similar information with you.
- Outdated information: Any items older than seven years are eligible to be removed.
- Fraud: If you were a victim of identity theft or fraud, there may be fraudulent items on your report. This information should be removed from your reports promptly.
- Inaccurate information: This can range from being double-charged to payments incorrectly labeled as late or outstanding. If you see items on your report that are not yours or have inaccurate information, collect receipts and evidence of the accurate information.
In all of these instances, you can reach out to your credit bureau to appeal to have these negative items removed. You need to gather as much evidence as possible and submit a formal letter to your bureau. Credit repair services can help you identify these negative items and reach out to bureaus to streamline this process.
What to Do If Your Late Payment Item Is Accurately Reported
If your late payments are accurately reported and timely, there’s no guaranteed way to remove them from your report. Your main options are to appeal to your lenders and creditors.
Send a Goodwill Letter
A goodwill letter is a letter you write to explain why you paid late. It’s essentially an appeal to their good faith, asking for them to forgive the late payment and assure it won’t happen again. This tends to be more successful if you have a history of timely payments and paying in full. Lenders and creditors may forgive the late payment and remove it from your report, but this is not a guarantee.
Request for Pay-for-Delete
A Pay-for-Delete letter is very similar to a goodwill letter. You can negotiate with your creditors with a Pay-for-Delete letter, offering to pay off outstanding balances in full in exchange for them removing your negative mark. You should have the agreement in writing in order to hold them up on their end of the bargain.
This has a better chance of working if you have something to offer your creditor. We recommend paying out remaining balances in full as an incentive for them to agree to Pay-for-Delete.
The Bottom Line
It is possible to remove late payments from your credit report. It may be more difficult to remove accurate and timely late payments, but you can always appeal to your lenders. If you need help navigating credit repair, reach out to us at The Phenix Group for your free credit analysis today!