Have you ever seen your credit score crash? Sometimes at the last minute? We’ve all been surprised by credit reports that weren’t as great as we wanted them to be. This is how to make sure your credit report is headed in the right direction, especially if your going to get a home loan mortgage in the next 30 days.

Let’s say you already have a past due on your report and you want to get the debt off your back, so you agree to pay for 75 percent of the debt.

A “Charge Off” is an accounting term that creditors use when they assume after a period of delinquency that they are not able to collect on a debt that is owed to them. Creditors write that debt off as a loss against their income taxes. Just because a debt is charged off (or written off) does not mean the debt is forgiven. The money is still owed. The creditor will usually sell or assign the debt to a collection agency or a lawyer to effect collection.