If your credit report has many negative entries, you’re maybe asking “Should I use an attorney for credit repair and how much will it cost?”
Well, it actually depends on your situation and if you have enough time to do it yourself.
Often, using this amount to pay off your debt will help you more than hiring an attorney or a credit repair company. The way you manage your credit and how responsible you are about your on-time payments can affect your credit score much more than a few negative inquiries on your credit report.
Can I Remove Credit Inquiries on My Own?
The truth is, there’s nothing a credit repair lawyer, attorney, or credit repair company can do that you can’t do it yourself. You don’t have to be a lawyer or have expertise/studies to remove simple invalid inquires from your credit report.
For more information about how to dispute inquiries from your credit report, read this post: “How To Remove Inquiries From Your Credit Report”
But in reality, credit reports can often become quite complicated, so hiring an expert is maybe worth it.
First, let’s make clear what a “credit repair” is and under what circumstances you shouldn’t hire anyone for repairing your credit.
What is Credit Repair?
Credit Repair is the process of improving your credit or correcting it if it’s the result of false information.
Also, when we refer to the term “Credit Repair”, we often mean the idea of hiring a company or an expert to help us repair our credit score.
There are many experts in the market that claim they can raise your credit score like:
- lawyers that expertise in credit repairing (known as “credit repair lawyers”)
- credit repair organizations/companies that include lawyers in their teams
- credit repair companies without lawyers in their teams
However, consumers often question the services’ value of these experts. You should know that if your credit score is a result of bad credit usage (e.g. late payments, carrying a huge balance) and you’re responsible for this, it’s impossible to remove these inquiries.
The only solution is to wait for them to naturally fall off.
Even if these credit repair experts promise you they can remove such inquiries, they’re probably lying.
How Does Credit Repair Work?
On the other hand, it’s possible for your credit report to be full of negative inquiries that you’re not responsible for like being a victim of identity theft or other fraudulent activity.
Further, even a spelling mistake of your name can have a negative impact on your credit score. It’s possible that positive inquiries don’t get recorded under your name or some negative inquiries (that are not yours) are charged to you.
About situations like these, you may consider hiring an expert you help you restore your credit score and credit report. You will save a lot of time because this process requires time and work,
After you contact a credit repair company to discuss your situation, they first identify what inquiries they can remove from your credit report.
Then, they often attempt to restore your credit by contacting the three major credit reporting agencies (Equifax, Experian, TransUnion) by:
- making a lot of phone calls
- disputing files
- sending letters
Should I Use An Attorney For Credit Repair?
Do you have only a few negative inquiries on your credit report?
Then, it’s better not to hire anyone for addressing your issues, especially if these inquiries are legit. Even if they are invalid, you can fix the issue yourself by contacting the three major credit reporting bureaus.
Do you have a poor credit score and many negative inquiries because of bad credit management?
If your poor credit score is a natural result of your own bad credit usage, an attorney cannot do much. Of course, you can ask for an attorney’s advice but don’t expect him to magically skyrocket your credit score.
Instead, It’s much better to start improving your credit score on your own by better credit management:
- Pay your bills when you have to
- Keep your balances low on revolving credit and your credit cards.
- Pay off your debt.
- Don’t apply for new credit accounts (especially in a short period of time) if you don’t have to
- Don’t close credit card accounts you don’t use (as long as you don’t have to pay annual fees). When you close an account, your credit utilization ratio increases. As a result, your credit score decreases because you owe the same amount but you have fewer credit accounts open.
Do you have a poor credit score because of false information or fraudulent activity?
If you fall into this category, you might want to consider hiring a professional to help you out.
For example, your credit report may suffer from negative inquiries as a result of misspelled details or identity theft.
According to ConsumerFinance.gov, 1 in 5 people have at least an error in one of their credit reports. Therefore, no matter how responsible payer you are, mistakes can still happen.
Further, it can get quite complicated to solve these issues on your own, especially if you don’t have previous experience. Not to mention that is a time-consuming and boring process.
This way, it makes sense to hire an attorney, credit repair lawyer, or a credit repair company to handle this for you in exchange for a fee.
How Much It Cost to Hire an Attorney/Lawyer for Credit Repair?
The (federal) Credit Repair Organizations Act (CROA) defines how credit repair companies must act and how they should charge their clients.
According to CROA, credit repair organizations should not charge their customers before they achieve actual results.
The majority of credit repair organizations charge one of two ways:
- “Pay per Delete”
- Subscription-based service
Pay for Delete
Using the Pay for Delete method, the credit repair companies charge you only after a negative item on your credit report is deleted as a result of their efforts. This way, you pay only if they achieve actual results.
Also, credit repair organizations operate according to CROA because they don’t charge customers beforehand.
Subscription-based service
With this model, credit repair companies charge you at the end of the month for the services they provided during the previous month.
The fee is usually around $50-$150 per month. Of course, there are exceptions.
Note that credit repair lawyers can cost a lot more ($500-$5000) depending on your situation. The more work your credit report requires the more money you’ll have to pay.
For this reason, you can try to remove some negative inquiries yourself to save some money.
Should I Use An Attorney For Credit Repair And How Much Will It Cost? – Summary
If your credit report has only a few negative inquiries you can dispute them yourself, so it doesn’t worth it to hire a professional.
Further, if your credit report has negative inquiries that are accurate (because of bad credit usage), there’s nothing you can do other than waiting for them to naturally fall off.
On the other hand, if your credit report has much inaccurate information that you’re not responsible for, you can reach out to a professional and seek his advice. You may not be able to handle too many invalid inquiries yourself. Situations like these can be too complicated (if identity theft or misspelled details are involved).
Obviously, credit repair costs money. This way, it’s your responsibility to weigh the situation and decide if it’s beneficial for you to hire someone to improve your credit score.
Last but not least, you should take into account that better credit management will probably increase your credit score more than deleting negative inquiries. It’s often better to invest this amount for paying off your debt and make on-time payments.
Should I Use An Attorney For Credit Repair And How Much Will It Cost? FAQs
It’s illegal for credit repair companies to charge you before they achieve actual results. If they successfully delete a negative item off your credit report they can charge you.
Depending on your situation and how much work it needs to be addressed, a credit repair attorney/lawyer usually charges $500-$5000 for the whole process.
If they charge based on a subscription, they often charge $50-$100 per month. Otherwise, they charge per item they delete off your credit report.
It actually depends on your situation and how complicated it is. If you have a poor credit score because you weren’t consistent with your payments, a professional cannot do much. You should also consider how important are future loans and low-interest rates to you.
They work if you have many negative inquiries that you’re not responsible for. Otherwise, it’s better to invest in better credit usage from now on.
If you use credit or loans during your lifetime, a good credit score will result in paying less of thousands of dollars in interest and fees compared to a poor credit score.
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