How Can I Remove Late Payments From My Credit Report?

Have you ever wondered this yourself? If so, you may be included with a large number of Americans who are finding it difficult to come up with the money to pay their bills timely every month. When you are late paying your bill, your creditor will report the untimeliness to the credit reporting agencies. Each late payment is then reported on your credit report. If a lender requests a copy of your credit history, all of your late payment entries will be viewed by the lender and possible be enough of a reason to deny your credit application.

Any payment received by the creditor after the due date is considered a “late payment.” It is unimportant as to “how late” the payment was, just that the payment was recieved after the due date. It could be one day late or 30 days late. For all intents and purposes, it is still late. If your payment is late, you will likely be assessed a late payment penalty.

To begin the process of removing late penalties from your credit report, you will need to request a copy of your credit report. This is easily done by getting in touch with one of the three major credit reporting agencies – TransUnion, Equifax, and Experian. You have the right to obtain one free copy of your credit report from these credit reporting agencies every twelve months.

Though the credit reports may vary slightly in their layout, they all contain the same types of information. You should be able to easily and quickly ascertain how each credit report lists entries showing late payments and should report the number of late payments you have made over a given period of years.

Although consumers understand that making late payments is not a good thing, they normally don’t understand the far-reaching consequences. Payment punctuality can count for over 30% of your total credit score. Because of this, late payments can severely affect credit applications which you submit to a lender.

To begin removing late payments from your credit report, you might try contacting your creditor and asking politely that it remove the late payments. If your account is currently up-to-date, your creditor may well remove these late payments. However, if you habitually pay late, your chances of success may dwindle, unless you have a bona fide reason for the payment tardiness.

If contacting the creditor is unsuccessful, you should write the credit reporting bureau that reports the overdue payment and request that the late payment be removed. You should include copies of any documentation which proves your claim and be sure to retain copies of all correspondence to and from the credit bureau. If the credit reporting bureau cannot verify within 30 days that the payment was late, it must remove the entry.

If at all possible, it is smart to keep this from happening in the first place. If you know you will be unable to make a payment on time, make a call to your creditor and explain your situation. It is often the case that creditors are more than happy to help you out by arranging a payment plan.

Credit reports can show late paymenst for up to seven years. As you can imagine, this can spell disaster for your credit score. To avoid this, work with your creditor to keep your credit history free of late payments.

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