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Q: I am under impression that 30 day late payment does not affect credit score after 24 months. I have had one 30 day late credit card payment for 21 months. Initially, it did affect my credit score – it went down by 42 points on Experian. I had only 3 credit lines then. Now I have 5 and are shopping for a mortgage. Scores pulled by my credit union show 661, 667 and 694. They say that I should wait for a bit over 90 days, afterwards my 30 day late won’t matter, right?

A: Wrong, but not too bad for you in any case. First, after 2 years 30 day Lates still count, but much less. Call it a fading influence if you like. And the very fact that you have a derogatory record on the credit report may still affect lender decision. Now with credit unions you may have more issues than with commercial banks. It could be their policy that no matter how little that late payment affects your credit score, its mere presence in the last 2 years is against their lending guidelines.

Second, you can check with the lender that makes FHA insured loans. It especially useful if you have less than 20 percent down. FHA does not care that much about little things like 30 day late payment, as long as your middle credit score stays above 620. Read Credit score for FHA loan and FHA loan requirements and qualifications.

Third, the reason your Experian score went down by 42 points was likely because you had very new credit history and only 3 active credit lines with one that had just become bad. Things like the late payments or small collections affect the most people with high credit scores vs. the ones with low credit scores and those with less established credit than the ones with seasoned credit history.

Thus, you must keep all options open. You can always come back to your credit union, but check with someone else. Try to get a copy of the credit report they run and keep the number of inquiries to the minimum, in your case I would suggest no more than 3 per month and don’t do it in consecutive months.

Finally, get a solid grip on your credit accounts. Set up email reminders from credit card lenders and other types of notification. And do not allow a 30 day late payment on your future mortgage. That will affect your credit score quite a bit.

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Tags: Credit Score, Day Late Payment, Late Payment, Score