MasConcepts Incorporated

^{… because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns—the ones we don’t know we don’t know. …}

— Donald Rumsfeld, 2002

Historically, it’s been relatively easy to rebuild after bankruptcy because the FICO score has been a “snapshot” of what has been true at the moment you check.

However, it looks like FICO10t is coming, and while we may know what it will do generally, we don’t know what it will look like for bankruptcy, because FICO10 is going to be using TRENDED DATA in a way prior FICO scores have not used.

So it’s probably going to take longer to rebuild, as they will be considering not just how long you’ve had credit, but what your monthly pattern is on how much you charge. Single-month high utilization will probably have an impact greater than that single month. And who knows how long you’ll have to have new credit for it to really build your score.

At this point, the impacts are unknown, and since there won’t be a guide we won’t know how this will impact post-bankruptcy rebuilding until it’s been in place for a year or two.