Credit Repair or Lawyer? Which is Better?

Handling your credit is hard. This is especially true if you have a credit score that could use some improvement. However, there are a variety of ways that you can handle credit repair. Some options you may not even know about yet! That is why you should check out different ways that you can handle credit repair so that you can find an option that works for your lifestyle, expectations, and budget.

Understanding What Your Credit Score Is

Before you can learn about the different ways to handle credit repair, you must first make sure you understand your score. Your score is a number that generally falls between 300 to 850. This number is what lenders use in order to determine how you are as a borrower. This score comes from a calculation that credit bureaus do. Credit bureaus (also known as credit reporting agencies) use information found on your credit report in order to do this calculation. Your credit report will have information about your credit file like amount of credit card debts, late payments, etc.

There are three main credit reporting agencies which are Experian, Equifax, and Transunion. These credit reporting agencies use a credit reporting scoring model in order to determine how the items on your credit report will impact your score. There are two main credit reporting scoring models! There is the FICO scoring model and the VantageScore model. However, the FICO model is much more popular!

What are Different Ways to Repair Your Credit?

If you are interested in improving your credit score, there are plenty of ways that you can do it! However, a few are:

Get Into Better Credit Habits
Get Help from a Credit Counseling Agency
Pay for a Credit Repair Company
Hire a Credit Repair Lawyer

Get Into Better Credit Habits

Credit repair can come in all shapes and sizes. A popular way that people improve their score is by getting into better credit habits. How you handle your credit is important! While it cannot change the mistakes you made in the past, it helps you be better prepared for the future. The best part? This involves zero money! You don’t need to pay anything to get into better habits, you can do it for free. Some ways that you can better manage your credit include:

Keep your credit usage (also known as your credit utilization ratio) below 30%
Pay your bills on time and in full when they are due
Don’t apply for too much new credit at once
Only apply for new credit when you need it
Regularly monitor your credit

Get Help from a Credit Counseling Agency

Another way that people can work on their credit is with a credit counseling agency. Credit counseling agencies are typically non profit organizations. This means that a majority of the time you will need to pay nothing in order to benefit from their services! These organizations can provide credit counselors that have been trained and certified in areas like budgeting, consumer credit, debt management, and money management. They can give you guidance on how to properly deal with your current credit situation and provide personalized advice!

Pay for a Credit Repair Company

Sometimes people turn to a credit repair company for help. These credit repair companies provide credit repair services that help consumers deal with the dispute process. They can get a free copy of the consumer’s credit report, and analyze it for any inaccurate items. After reviewing your report for inaccurate items, anything they find would be disputed with the credit reporting agencies. Once the credit bureaus investigate, they will determine whether or not the item is truly accurate. If the item is found to be invalid it will be removed from the consumer’s credit report! Which means that any negative impact that the item had on the consumer’s credit score would be gone as well.

Like we said earlier, these companies aren’t free. People can typically expect to pay a monthly fee of $50 to $150. It’s important to keep in mind that these companies do not provide any sort of special service. They offer to help consumers with the dispute process, but consumers could do this on their own if they wanted to (for free!). These companies advertise that their help will save consumers time and effort when dealing with disputes.

Hire a Credit Repair Lawyer

A credit repair lawyer, also known as a credit lawyer, is a person that is a lawyer who specializes in credit. While the legal industry may not formally recognize a “credit lawyer”, they still exist! They can help you handle the dispute process instead of hiring a credit repair company. A credit repair lawyer would work with the credit bureaus to get the inaccurate information removed from your credit report, help with settling debt with collection companies, and even represent you in court if a creditor takes legal action against you!

How to Find a Credit Repair Lawyer?

In the age of technology, it is easier than you realize to find a credit repair lawyer. You can look for a credit repair lawyer by using online directories. Generally, you can expect them to work at a law firm. However, even if they don’t work at a law firm, they still may be reputable. These directories can show you who is available in your area! Once you find an attorney you can confirm their legitimacy by checking out the American Bar Association. You can also check with the Better Business Bureau (BBB) to see if there is any additional information you can find about them, their law firm, etc!

Once you find a credit repair lawyer you will also want to check out their experience level. It is important to find a credit repair lawyer that is experienced with consumer law, debt collections, etc.

Are Credit Repair Lawyers Worth It?

The cost of a credit repair lawyer will depend on a variety of factors! Factors like their experience level, the law firm, the services they provide, and more will play a role in determining the cost. Generally, you can expect a lawyer to cost between $500 to $5,000 (but it can be more or less than that). For example, some credit lawyers may charge less for helping you put a plan together for your credit card debt than they would if they needed to represent you in court!

In order to understand whether or not a credit repair lawyer is “worth it” will depend on what you need their help with. If you are getting sued in court by a creditor then it will benefit you more to have a credit repair lawyer than if you just wanted to dispute negative items on your credit report. Each case will be different so it is hard to determine the “worth”.

Commonly Asked Questions

There are a variety of questions that people have when it comes to credit repair companies, credit repair services, etc. You may have some questions that others have had when learning about credit repair options.

Credit Repair or Lawyer: Which is Better?

The best way to repair your credit will depend on the situation you are dealing with! An online article cannot give you personalized advice. If you want some guidance, you can benefit from getting in touch with a credit counseling agency or even your local personal banker.

What’s the Difference Between a Credit Lawyer and a Credit Repair Attorney?

When reviewing your options for a credit lawyer, you may come across the term credit repair attorney. A credit repair attorney is very similar to a credit lawyer. However, in order to better understand the difference between a credit repair attorney and a credit lawyer, you will need to know the difference in their title.

An attorney is a person that is trained and educated in law (meaning they passed the bar exam) and they practice in court. A lawyer on the other hand are people that have gone to law school and often may have taken/passed the bar exam. There is no difference when they’re working as in-house counsel.

How Many Different Credit Reports Do You Have?

Each credit bureau will have their own version of your credit report. That means when looking at the three major credit bureaus, you have three credit reports (one from each)! That is because lenders typically don’t report to all the bureaus. This means some credit reports will have information that other reports don’t have.

Overall

There are so many different ways that you can repair your credit. You can:

Get Into Better Credit Habits
Get Help from a Credit Counseling Agency
Pay for a Credit Repair Company
Hire a Credit Repair Lawyer

It is important to keep in mind that you should compare each option in order to find the one that can best help your current situation. Some of the options are free (like improving your credit habits) while others can cost up to thousands of dollars (like getting help from a credit repair attorney). The best choice for you will depend on what you are dealing with! If you need some personalized guidance, you will want to get in touch with a professional.