703. How long does it take for an event (positive or negative) to show up on my credit report?
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This article is from the Credit cards and Consumer Credit FAQ, by adams@spss.com (Steve Adams) with numerous contributions by others.
703. How long does it take for an event (positive or negative) to show up on my credit report?
Suppose you've just paid off a large loan and you're applying for a
car loan or a mortgage. It would be nice to know that the lender
who pulls your report will see that the old loan paid was off okay.
However: Credit grantors' contracts with credit bureaus may or may
not specify a timetable for grantors to report new information to
the bureau. If the credit grantors are tardy there's not much the
credit bureau can or will do, since those same credit grantors are
also the customers of the credit bureau. Also, credit bureaus may
gather information directly from public records, on any schedule
they please.
The answer to this Q, as a practical matter, is that there's no time
limit that you can enforce for information to show up. In fact, you
don't have a legal right to insist on any report being made at all.
(You can get false items corrected, but you can't legally insist on
omitted information being added.) If you've actually paid off a debt
that is reported as still unpaid, about all you can do is go through
the procedure in section 9, "Fixing your credit report," for
challenging incorrect information.
Note that you can certainly provide the credit grantor with documents
that show the loan was repaid. I did this at the time of my mortgage
with two accounts that showed as 'open.'
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