FYI Judgements and Credit Reports.

[mileycyan]

FYI

We won a judgement against an ex-tenant in 2005. I filed a FIFA with the court AND paid a company to send out letters and report it on the tenants credit report. I did not care about the the letters only the credit reporting part of it. I was told by numerous sources that the judgement would be put on the report automatically by the bureaus.

I just ran a credit report today on the ex-tenant and NEITHER one of these was there. NOT the Judgement (Stated "NO PUBLIC RECORDS FOUND") NOT the collection that I PAID for.

[Terry CA]

Just curious..what state and county was this in?

You first should RECORD a judgment with the county so they can lien any future real estate holdings, etc.

THEN you need to followup with the collection firm you used and ask what happened. Did you have a written agreement with the collection firm?

More and more the 3rd party collection companies are shying away from LL/Tenant debt reporting to credit bureaus BECAUSE they credit agencies require REGULAR UPDATES...this since they cracked down on everything recently.

A lot of the LL specific collection firms were just putting the debt out there on the credit reports but then never posted any updates (just like you CC companies must send updates every month for example) so then if the tenant disputes it or in some cases if the collection companies FAIL TO UPDATE THE RECORD accurately it may have been removed. Not saying that happened here but it could be part of the reason.

LL's are mistaken that money judgments are AUTOMATICALLY reported to credit bureaus all three. In many states/counties this is simply NOT the case.

Who did you use for the collection letters / reporting? When was it?

[mileycyan]

The judgement was ordered and a FiFa was filled in Gwinnett Co. Georgia.

The letter/collection company was www.rentrecoveryservice.com (http://www.rentrecoveryservice.com)

Good point about the posibility of the collection being removed from the credit report however in this case I am quite positive that this did not happen. The tenant had not had any activity on their credit report since they were evicted.

[Terry CA]

Well then...

you need to followup with the collection firm you used and ask what happened. Did you have a written agreement with the collection firm?