Tag Archives: Credit Reports

In a letter to the FHFA, a coalition of eight U.S. Senators are asking the Agency to implement reforms to credit scoring models that could impact access to creditworthy borrowers. Click through to read arguments from both sides of the issue.

A new report from TransUnion explores FHFA’s proposal to utilize two instead of three credit reports, and the significant impact such a move would have on consumers, mortgage lenders, and the broader economy.

Proposals are being considered by the Bureau to help end coercive debt collection tactics, clean up inaccurate data, and improve credit score predictiveness by erasing medical bills from Americans’ credit reports.

According to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the number of accounts in collections dropped from 261 to 175 million tradelines between 2018-2022.

In the Bureau’s Fall 2022 report, some mortgage servicers were cited for violations of federal law by charging sizable phone payment fees and for charging consumers fees while they were in CARES Act forbearances.

New guidance from the Bureau affirms that “permissible purposes” are required to use and share credit reports and background reports by companies compiling personal data.

CFPB Director Rohit Chopra said, “Today’s report is further evidence of the serious harms stemming from [credit bureaus'] faulty financial surveillance business model.”

Mortgage lenders rely on liens and judgments records to assess a borrower’s creditworthiness and capacity for repayment. For decades, they obtained this information in credit reports during the application process. But as of July 1 2017, the Nationwide Credit Reporting Agencies— Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion—began removing a large segment of the data from their reporting.

Chronos Solutions, a Coppell, Texas-based real estate financial services provider, announced a new offering Thursday aimed at providing lenders information that was recently removed from credit reports. Starting in July, national credit reporting agencies were no longer permitted to include liens and civil judgment data in their credit reports. The change came as the result of a civil action suit that claimed inclusion of lien and judgment data can wrongfully lower a consumer’s credit score by up to 100 points. The company set out to fill the void in lender information by offering a lien and judgment addendum to its Funding Suite Report.

Many Americans are still having difficulty obtaining mortgage loans due to the adverse impact of the crisis on their credit scores even seven years after the crisis. In mid-July, Brown proposed a bill known as the Consumer Reporting Fairness Act, which would require banks or creditors to notify credit reporting agencies when a bankruptcy extinguishes a consumer's debt.