A person's credit report can have a significant impact on their quality of life. Potentially negative items can cause lenders to raise your rates. A bad credit report can also make it more difficult or even impossible to buy a home, a car, or otherwise provide for your and your family's interests. For this reason, it is vital to know how to monitor and clean up your credit report.

In order to clean up your credit, you will need a copy of your credit report from each of the three credit bureaus: Trans Union, Equifax, and Experian. You may be able to receive a free copy of your credit report if a potentially negative item has been added recently, or if you have had an application for credit denied. Also, some states allow you to request a free credit report every year. Regardless, you should request a copy of your credit report from all three bureaus; even though they share information between each other, if there is a mistake or a problem, it could appear on only one of the bureaus' reports. The contact information for all three bureaus is available on their websites.

Credit report clean-up works through contesting information and a lot of letter writing. If you find items on your credit report that you believe do not belong there or are inaccurate, you will need to write a letter to the credit bureau who provided the report. It is best to send whatever proof you have that the claim is inaccurate.

Once you dispute the information, the credit bureau goes to the credit company to request proof of their claim. If they do not or cannot provide the requested information within thirty days, the item should be removed from your report. However, the item will remain on your credit report if the creditor can prove its claim, regardless of whether they do so in the allotted time period.

Negative items on your credit report may also be removed even if they are correct. If you have otherwise maintained good standing with the creditor that reported the information, you can write to them and request that they remove the item from your credit report. Even if this is not a possibility, however, be assured that your penance has a limited sentence: items on your credit report remain there for only seven years, after which time they go away on their own. If you have declared bankruptcy, however, that information will remain on your credit report for a longer period of time.

Cleaning up your credit report can easily be done on your own, but it takes a lot of persistence. If you do not get the response you want -- and you may not, the first time -- you will need to send another letter restating your claim or request. In fact, you may have to repeat this process several times before you get a satisfactory response. If repeated attempts do not resolve the issue, the credit bureaus will include a personal statement of up to 100 words, which you can use to provide any necessary explanation. There are also companies that offer credit report clean-up services, for those who don't want to go through the process of disputing their credit reports, but these services are not necessary for the do-it-yourself personality.

Whether or not your credit report needs to be disputed, it is important to keep a careful watch on your credit reports from all three bureaus. Such awareness prevents credit fraud from getting out of hand, as well as allowing you to catch errors or other problems early on. If you are the victim of identity theft, you can write to the credit bureaus and request that a fraud alert be placed on your credit report. Ninety days is the standard time period for such an alert, but you can also write and request a seven-year fraud alert. A fraud alert will not change your credit rating, but you will have to go through a more stringent identity verification process any time you are applying for a credit card or loan.

With the proper awareness and a little patience, you can easily clean up your credit report. Considering the impact your credit has on your life, it is well worth writing a few letters in order to maintain a good credit rating.