Restoring your own credit is like repairing your own transmission or representing yourself a court of law; it is possible, but you must decide if you are willing to take the time and assume the risks of doing it yourself. Most people choose to allow an attorney to represent them because an attorney better understands the complexities of the legal system. If you decide your time is better spent and you would like a respectable company to help, we HIGHLY recommend using Lexington Law.

How Much Time Does It Really Take To Restore My Credit Myself?

The chart below shows liberal estimates of time required to repair your own credit.  If you are a single person working on his/her credit alone, you can subtract 25% from the total time required.  these requirements will continue on a monthly basis, gradually shrinking as creditors agree to delete their listings.  On the average, you can expect the process to take between twelve to eighteen months, unless you have very little negative credit. (Example: one item per report)

Create Original Letters - Form Letters Are Not Effective

Each response to a creditor or a credit bureau must be an original and must pertain specifically to your present situation or you may be red-flagged as a frivolous credit repair troublemaker, this will result in being ignored entirely. There are no effective "form letters" or "fill in the blank" responses that give good results. Credit bureau checkers spot form letters easily - this type of letter is usually  a sign of someone attempting to repair their credit. As such, these letters generally earn a swift "frivolous and irrelevant" response.

Be Persistent - And Patient

The credit bureaus will shoot down the majority of your claims and disputes. They will treat you like a disreputable person and a liar. You must take this rejection without becoming discouraged. If you are the kind of person who tires quickly from an emotional struggle, you should seriously consider hiring a professional to repair your credit. If you are the kind of person who becomes angry when dealing with the slow, bureaucratic employees of big bureaucracies, you will not fare well. Patience is an absolute requirement. If you are thick-skinned and have the fortitude to fight the credit bureaus and your creditors for as long as it takes, then you may have the proper disposition to repair your own credit.

Dueling with the credit bureaus and credit grantors requires an aggressive and tenacious personality. You must be willing to wade through rejection after rejection until you achieve your desired credit repair.

Develop A System - Stay Organized

In the process of repairing your credit, you will have to track and monitor dozens of communications at once. This will require organized, disciplined habits. Every day, you must check up on each of these communications to make sure that the credit bureau or credit grantor hasn't overextended their time limit. You must spend at least one-half to one hour per day tracking your responses, results, and taking appropriate actions. Remember, you will be dealing with three credit bureaus per person, plus you will be communicating with each credit grantor appearing on each credit report. In most cases, the number of simultaneous communications will exceed twenty or thirty. If you are not a very organized person, you are definitely not in a good position to attempt to repair your own credit.

Fail To Plan - And You Plan To Fail

Repairing your credit by yourself is possible. But remember, the credit bureaus are committed to the failure of credit repair efforts, and the credit bureaus have far more experience in discouraging hopeful consumers than you have in beating giant credit bureaus.  Yet, some consumers have achieved results in repairing their credit without professional assistance. Hopefully we've helped you determine whether or not you should seek professional assistance in your credit repair efforts or if you have what it takes to do it yourself.  Attempting to repair your own credit while failing to dedicate sufficient time or attention can result in further damage to your credit rating and may make it impossible for anyone to repair your credit for you. Examine very carefully your capabilities and your schedule before deciding to repair your own credit. For the best information on self-help, we recommend the following: