Whats the difference between a judgement and a collection?
I continue to get questions about judgements on credit reports and how to pay them off to get a mortgage. The flood of credit cleaning scams in the past decade have led some people to think that anything bad can be erased from your record if you just find the right place to ask. A judgement happens when someone wins a case against you and there are monetary damages awarded to the other side. In most of the cases we are talking about here, a past due debt went to collection and when it still was not paid, the collection agency took it to court and got a judgement in the amount owed, plus interest and legal fees. Whats the difference between a collection and a judgement? A collection is when someone you owe money to stopped waiting and turned your account over to a third party to try and collect the money for a percentage. There are laws about how those collectors can conduct business, but usually having an outstanding collection means youll be getting harsh letters in the mail and deman
