How do Parking Tickets Affect your Credit?
Old, unpaid parking tickets can haunt you
You may have forgotten about your old parking tickets, but have they forgotten about you? Some people think that if they don’t pay their parking tickets and just ignore them, they will some how go away. From our experience, parking tickets don’t always go away. Old, unpaid parking tickets often show up on people’s credit reports.
How to get parking tickets off your credit report
People often don’t realize that their old parking tickets are reporting on their credit report until they apply for credit. Someone will apply for a loan, their lender will obtain their credit report and then ask them why they have a collection for $290 owed to the City of XYZ under the public records section of their credit bureau. Although this can be a little embarrassing, it can often be fixed. Many people are able to pay their overdue parking tickets and then ask that the public record be removed from their credit report (usually you would pay the city that you owe the fines to and at the same time ask them to remove the record from your credit report). There is an added bonus for doing this. When collections like this are removed from someone’s credit bureau, their credit score will usually improve.
Help your credit score: don't take too long to pay your parking tickets
You can of course prevent this hassle by paying your parking tickets before they get too old. It may not be worth a city’s effort to send old parking tickets to a collection agency, but they can definitely get your attention by putting a record of this debt on your credit report. If you have a pile of unpaid parking tickets, take care of them before your banker sees them. It will make you look better, and it will improve your credit score.
Photo: Bahi P