Judgments IIB

[Princesskina]

Hey I found this ques on another board but I been wondering the same thing so here it is...

OK, I am having some confusion over these terms and processes.

My SO had a BK7 discharged in Nov. '04. Include in that BK were 2 judgments.
The BK and both judgments are showing up on her reports.

After doing some reading, I think/thought that we needed to discharge these.

I filled out an "Application for Discharge of Judgments" and served them to the creditors/attorneys with an "Affadavit of Service by Mail", and will file the Discharge 20 days from the time the papers are served.

Will we be able to have these removed from her credit reports, after they are discharged, or does this simply mean that they will list on the reports as discharged?

Can they be vacated? For a while I think that I (and many others from my search here) are have been getting these two terms mixed up.

Thanks

[HHM]

You are throwing around a lot terms that have very different meanings within various context.

Generally, judgments are no longer enforceable if they are part of your BK, but you have to file a notice of discharge with the court in which the judgment was entered. I.e. if you were sued in a California state court for the district of Los Angeles for a BofA Visa you owed, you would have to file a Notice of Discharge with that court in order to vacate the judgment.

However, when it comes to credit reporting, I do not believe you can get it removed from you credit report even after the judgment is vacated. The judgment is a public record and records the fact that a judgment was taken against you.

[poorme]

I was able to have two removed from my cr rpts after they were vacated. I think there may be a fine line between a judgment being 'avoided' vs. 'vacated'. When there is an avoidance, enforceability is removed. When vacated, the item is removed from public records as if it never existed. Once that takes place the cr can be updated, because a fresh pull of public records would not show it. Now, a lawyer I'm not - but the guy who explained that to me is. But any additional info on this topic would be enlightening.

[Princesskina]

Thanks for the info but the actual ques came from another board and no one responded to the ques although they probably have 5x's teh daily activity we have over here.

[HHM]

I was able to have two removed from my cr rpts after they were vacated. I think there may be a fine line between a judgment being 'avoided' vs. 'vacated'. When there is an avoidance, enforceability is removed. When vacated, the item is removed from public records as if it never existed. Once that takes place the cr can be updated, because a fresh pull of public records would not show it. Now, a lawyer I'm not - but the guy who explained that to me is. But any additional info on this topic would be enlightening.

Good point, even I was not being careful enough with my language. Poorme is correct, when you discharged a judgment in BK, the judgment is "avoided" in that it is no longer enforceable. When you vacate a judgment, it is as if the judgment never happened. (vacating judgments can occur for many reasons, but generally not for BK).

In that sense, I am still of the opinion, you probably will not be able to remove the judgments from your credit report. But there is no harm in trying.