When you see a civil judgment on your credit report it means that a creditor has sued you for payment of a debt. It is a legal hearing that gives the debt collector an extended amount of time to collect the debt.

Most debts have a 7 year statue of limitations. With a judgment it allows the debt collector up to 20 years to collect on the debt. Judgments typically occur with unsecured debt.

It has become common for debt collectors to renew their judgments against the debtor. This will give the debt collector another 20 years to try and recover payment on the debt.

A judgment will drastically reduce your credit score. Be aware that paying a judgment will not remove it from your credit report.

When a judgment is paid it changes the listing to satisfied judgment. A satisfied judgment is still a derogatory listing and will still hurt your credit score.

The most effective way or removing judgments is done by disputing the judgment. This means you are challenging the accuracy or validity of the judgment.

You dispute the judgment directly with the credit bureaus. This is done by writing a dispute letter to the credit bureaus.

If a judgment is not verified as accurate it must be deleted by the credit bureaus. Often when listings are disputed they are removed regardless of their accuracy.

This is because it costs the debt collectors money to verify the accuracy or validity of a listing. Often debt collectors are unwilling to spend the money to verify a negative listing.

The difficult part is to get the credit bureaus to investigate a disputed listing. This is a result of the investigation costing the credit bureaus money that would otherwise be profit.

Thus some individuals have found it beneficial to hire a professional credit repair firm to dispute the listings on their behalf.