On February 23, 2018 the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) published the February 2018 Quarterly Consumer Report Trends, entitled Public Records. The CFPB also published an article summarizing the significant conclusion of the report. The report concludes that the lack of public records information has had minimal effect on credit scores.
Effective July 1, 2017 The three nationwide credit reporting companies—Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion – removed civic public records that did not meet stricter standards for accuracy as required by a settlement between the three nationwide consumer reporting agencies and 30 state attorneys general. One concern regarding the action was that credit scores would improve as a result of the removal of the negative information.
According to the report about 4 percent of consumers with civil judgments or tax liens on their credit record in June (only 0.24 percent of consumers overall) experienced a large enough increase in their credit score as the result of the removal of the data to move into a higher credit score band, meaning, for example, that their credit score moved from being subprime to near prime or from near prime to prime.
A copy of the CFPB article is available at: https://www.consumerfinance.gov/about-us/blog/removal-public-records-has-little-effect-consumers-credit-scores/
A copy of the publication is available at: https://s3.amazonaws.com/files.consumerfinance.gov/f/documents/cfpb_consumer-credit-trends_public-records_022018.pdf
