A public record is a court matter that reports on your credit file: a bankruptcy, a judgment or a lien. Unlike a late payment or a collection, most public records have no move that clears them sooner. They report until their fall-off date, and the honest thing a report can do is name that date and describe the strongest position you can reach in the meantime. That is what your FundReadi Report does.
Key takeaways
- A bankruptcy reports for up to ten years from filing. Judgments, liens and other negatives report seven.
- An open bankruptcy, an unreleased lien or an unsatisfied judgment is a blocking gate. A discharged or dismissed bankruptcy rides as an advisory with its fall-off date named.
- For a resolved record, the report is information only: it reports until its fall-off date, and no action is needed on it.
- The 0% lane stays locked while any public record is on file.
The three kinds
A bankruptcy is a court process for debt you cannot pay. Chapter 7 and Chapter 13 are the two consumer forms. Its status on your file is what matters most: open, discharged or dismissed.
A judgment is a court ruling that you owe a debt. It is unsatisfied until it is paid and satisfied afterward, and the file records which.
A lien is a legal claim against your property for an unpaid debt, often a tax debt. It is unreleased until the debt is settled and released afterward.
Each bureau carries its own copy, so a record can appear on one bureau and not another.
How long each reports
A bankruptcy reports for up to ten years from filing, seven for a Chapter 13. Judgments, liens and every other negative item report seven years. Those spans set the fall-off date on each record, and your report names it wherever it can compute it from the filing date on the file.
The fall-off date is the end of the story for a resolved record. Nothing shortens it, and nothing needs to.
Open versus resolved, as your report reads it
Your report computes eligibility gates from your credit data before the analysis runs, and public records land on one of two sides.
An open bankruptcy, an unreleased lien or an unsatisfied judgment is a blocking gate. The verdict is capped, the funding range renders locked, and the report names what clears it: the record is resolved or stops reporting on every bureau carrying it. The readiness score still shows as a real number, so you can see what the file looks like underneath the gate.
A discharged or dismissed bankruptcy, a satisfied judgment or a released lien is not a blocking gate. It rides as an advisory: the verdict stands as scored, and the record is named with its fall-off date. When a bankruptcy's status on the file cannot be read clearly, the report treats it as resolved rather than open, so an unreadable status never locks a range for years on its own.
Information only
For a resolved record, the wording in your report is deliberately flat: this reports until its fall-off date, and no action is needed on it. There is no action item attached, because there is no action to take. Paying more, calling anyone, or opening accounts to offset it changes nothing about the record itself.
The same rule applies to any tripped item with no resolving move. Instead of inventing a fix, the report names the fall-off date and the strongest reachable position for the file until then: which accounts to keep in the band, which structure to build, which tiers stay open. The record is a fact about the file; the rest of the file is still yours to manage.
The 0% lane stays locked
One consequence holds whether the record is open or resolved: the 0% products in your lender tiers stay locked in the third tier while any public record is on file. That is stated plainly in your report rather than left for you to discover at an application. Interest-bearing products in the first two tiers may still be reachable on a file carrying a resolved record, and the report says which.
Where to see them
Your public records page lists every record on each bureau with its type, filing date and status as the bureau reports it. Your FundReadi Report names the same records in its gates, with the fall-off date on each resolved one. If a record on the page is not yours, that is a different situation from an accurate one, and the piece on errors covers it.
Open your public records page, check the status the bureau reports on each record, and compare it with the fall-off date named in your FundReadi Report.
This piece is education, not financial or legal advice, and nothing in it is a lender's decision or a promise about your score or an application. Credit scores in the portal are VantageScore® 3.0.