Despite the proliferation of information the internet about credit repair, many consumers know very little about how to repair credit. One reason is that some credit repair rules just don’t make sense. Take for example, paying old debt.

When Paying Old Debts Can Hurt Your Credit

When trying to repair your credit, sometimes paying old debt can hurt your credit score. “How can this be?” you may be wondering. To understand it fully, you must first understand how credit repair works. The older a debt is, the higher the probability that it can hurt you to repay it. The following explains why.
If you have worked to rebuild your credit and you have a debt that is older than two years on it, paying it makes it “new” again. That is, it is marked as a recent occurrence on your credit report, which acts to remind credit bureaus of it. They mark it as a “recent” bad credit account, deflating the credit score you’ve worked hard to build. That’s why paying an old debt can hurt your credit score. In essence, the old becomes new again.

Which Bad Debts You Should Focus On Repaying

First off, paying off all of your debt is the right thing to do. But, there is a way to go about it that can help or harm you. There are certain debts that must be repaid – no matter what. These are primarily government loans (eg, student and home loans, and IRS debts). These are not bankruptable and you can face severe financial penalties for not paying them.

For most loans, creditors like to see how you’ve handled your credit recently, as in the past two to five years, more or less. While they’re interested in your entire credit history, if your bad credit is in the distant past, it has less of an effect on how your loan application may be viewed. It’s things like this that make the services of a credit repair specialist necessary. They can make sense of the insensible, so you don’t make critical mistakes as you try to “do the right thing” and repair your credit.

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