Removing Late Payments from Your Credit Report

Late payments are something that can happen to just about everyone. Whether you lost track of time, didn't get the bill, had your check get lost in the mail, disputed the charge, or didn't make a payment on time for any other reason, a late payment listing can end up on your credit report if the creditor reports it to one of the credit bureaus.

Late Payments and Your Credit Score

Most of the time, a late payment doesn't have a huge impact on your credit score. A single 30 day late payment isn't necessarily indicative of a person who is a major credit risk so, by itself; it won't do too much damage to your credit score. In addition, as long as you don't have any more late payments show up on your credit reports, your credit score should also recover fairly quickly.

Multiple late payments and seriously delinquent accounts are a different story. If your credit reports show a pattern of late payments, your credit score assumes that you are either overextended (owe more than you make) or are plain irresponsible, either one of which make you a bad credit risk. Because of this, your credit score will take a big hit. In fact, acording to Credit.com, while a lone 30 day late payment isn't much to worry about, a single 90 day late payment can hurt your credit score as much as a collections account, judgment, or tax lien.

Deleting Late Payments from Your Credit Reports

Like any other negative item on your credit reports, you have the right to dispute any late payments on your credit reports that you feel are unfairly lowering your credit score. Obvious examples of this are late payments that are not yours, are duplicate listings, or are for accounts where you never received a bill. Less obvious examples include late payments where circumstances prevented you from making your payments on time such as an illness, divorce, or job loss. While the payments truly were late, the negative listings are lowering your credit score to the point that it is not an accurate representation of your credit risk. Because these late payments are misleading to lenders, you have the option to dispute them.

Of course, disputing a negative item and getting it removed from your credit reports are two different things. Removing a late payment from your credit reports may be as simple as submitting the form on the credit bureaus website, but if that doesn't work, you'll have to try more time intensive tactics. Along with credit bureau disputes, you may also need to work directly with the creditor reporting the negative item using methodologies ranging from good natured to confrontational.

Because of how difficult removing a late payment from your credit reports can be, many people choose to enlist the help of a professional credit repair company like Lexington Law. In 2009, Lexington Law helped clients remove over 1 million negative items from their credit report including 213,538 late payments. You can learn more about these removal statistics by visiting the Lexington Law website at www.lexingtonlaw.com.