Pulling Credit Reports for Your Bankruptcy Clients
Pulling credit reports is a must for bankruptcy cases. It will save you time and ensure that the info in your case is accurate. Find out how NextChapter's integration with Universal Credit Services can help with this.
  • integration
  • legal tech
  • bankruptcy
Meredith Boe
Published on Jul 09, 2020

 

An essential part of bankruptcy cases is pulling the debtor's credit report. The information in these reports make it possible to complete the bankruptcy schedules so you can file the petition with the court. As a bankruptcy attorney, it’s helpful to provide guidance and information to your clients about how to obtain a report, why it’s important, and how to avoid fraudulent credit sites.

 

Here’s what you need to know about pulling credit reports for your clients and how you can make it safer and easier with Universal Credit Services.

 

 

Make sure you trust the source

 

It might be tempting to encourage clients to pull their credit report on their own, but remember that they may not know where to turn. They could end up pulling a report that’s inaccurate or was found on an unsafe website.

 

Because pulling a legitimate credit report requires providing detailed sensitive information about the debtor, it’s common for fraudulent sites to ask for this information, posing as valid credit report sources.

 

How can you make sure you’re pulling a report from a credible source? There are a few different trusted sources, including Universal Credit Services (UCS). UCS is a credit reporting agency that’s been in operation for over 25 years. You and your clients can easily and safely pull credit reports from UCS. The credit report is provided in a format that’s easy for everyone to read and understand.

 

The Tri-Merge credit reports from UCS pull credit data from the three credit information sources: Trans Union, Equifax, and Experian. The credit reports include the debtor’s credit score and risk score, current lenders, outstanding debt, past due amounts if any, and more credit information.

 

 

NextChapter’s integration with UCS

 

We’ve integrated with UCS so that attorneys and paralegals can automatically pull credit report information into the bankruptcy petition. Manual entry is no longer required with this integration, so you can save time.

 

It’s crucial that credit report information be accurate, as it’s one of the most important parts of the bankruptcy process. Using NextChapter, you can pull a debtor’s credit information simply by entering in client name and social security number.

 

From there, the applicable info will be imported into NextChapter and the bankruptcy schedules. You can also pull a joint report if you’re working on a joint bankruptcy case.

 

Our integration with UCS ensures accuracy and reduces credit report errors. It makes your life easier because the information is automatically uploaded. And, you can easily share the credit report with your client by printing it out for them if needed.