My husband and I recently got married and we are in the process of applying for a mortgage. We are both first time home buyers. We are appling for the mortgage jointly, however after the loan officer ran our credit it appeared that I had a judgment on one of my credit reports. Only one of the credit bureaus has a judgment reported (Experian). That same credit bureau has this same item listed as a collection with another company, so it is a duplicate item on my credit report. This judgment apparently occurred in July of 2003. When I went to the county court to obtain the documents there were two names that appeared on the civil judgment documentation that was provided other than mine and my husbands.

I have a few of questions. It is a fairly old judgment, will this affect us during the approval process? Is there a way for me to get this judgment removed from my credit report since it is only listed on my credit report more than once and only listed by one credit bureau? If this judgment is only listed on my credit report, can we put the title in my husband's name only? The lender did say that normally they only consider negative items which occurred in the last 3 years; however they mentioned that we may not be able to get a title with the lien. I don't know if getting approved for a loan and getting are two different process?

Most lenders will not work with a client with judgments on the credit bureau.

They will normally require that they be paid or dismissed before granting a loan approval.

Your husband would be better off getting the mortgage in his name only, unless you can take care of this judgment.

I'm not sure what he's referring to about getting a title with the lien. If you are buying sa property your judgement will not have a lien on the property. Its possible they may use the judgement to get a lien, but that's after your close.

Whether an old judgement will affect your qualifying for a loan depends on the lender.

If you want to get rid of the judgement, then pay it.