Credit glossary
Goodwill letter
A request asking a lender to remove an accurate late payment from your credit reports as a courtesy, not because it was wrong.
You have no legal right to a goodwill removal, and many lenders decline because the law requires them to report accurately. Requests stand the best chance when the late was a one-time slip with a clear cause, the account is now current, and the rest of your history is clean. Write to the lender rather than the bureaus, explain what happened in a few sentences, and ask for one specific change.
If the answer is no, the late can stay up to seven years, but FICO says older problems count less as time passes, so its weight shrinks as clean months pile up. A goodwill request is the honest alternative to disputing an accurate late, which usually comes back verified and can leave a dispute remark that complicates a mortgage.
Guides that go deeper
- Goodwill letters: when they work, when they don't, and a sampleA goodwill letter asks a lender to drop an accurate late payment as a courtesy. No law requires it and results are mixed. How to give yours a fair shot.
- Recovering from a late payment: what to do this week and this yearA late payment fades, and what you do in the first months shapes how fast. A week-by-week, year-by-year recovery plan based on how FICO scores work.
- What not to dispute on your credit report before a mortgageDisputing accurate items rarely helps, and open disputes can stall a mortgage. How Fannie Mae and FHA treat disputed accounts, and what to do instead.
Sources
- How long does negative information remain on my credit report?, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
- Payment History and Your FICO Score, myFICO
- 15 U.S.C. 1681s-2: Responsibilities of furnishers of information to consumer reporting agencies, Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School
This is education, not legal or financial advice. Spot an error? Tell us and we'll fix it.