My wife and I are in the process of closing on a house and during the underwriting process discovered that her Nissan lease that she traded in to Volvo in 2019 is still open and in collections (she just assumed that it was taken care of, never got any calls/letters that Nissan was still owed money, and her credit score is above 800). We called the Volvo dealership in NY, and they said they don’t have the original lease paperwork, more than 7 years have passed. Nissan Finance just gave her a settlement amount, $800 or so, which isn’t that big of a deal but would rather not have to pay it needlessly to close on the house. If we can’t find her lease paperwork, is there a way out of paying it or are we out of luck in this case?
Find your copy of the odometer statement they gave you at disposition?
This does not seem possible, and after 7 years later?
- It is unlikely any obligation stays “in collections” for 7 years before proceeding to a full chargeoff/writeoff or a default judgment although it seems more possible with a deficiency on a lease
- $800? Really?
- Nobody received ANY notice for 7 years?
- This did not show on her credit report at all?
- If not on a credit report, how does this “show up” “in underwriting” if not on the CR?
It all sounds very strange but I hope it works out and that your rate is not above 7% as well.
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I’ll add a little more context, we looked for it after being told and it was on the credit report (I know the Amex report isn’t the most accurate) but there it is showing as payments were still being made on time as of last month. She is more of a trusting person in these matters, and didn’t really confirm, the sales person said they would take care of it and that was it. Maybe there was a letter or something but nothing that stood out to her and certainly nothing that was sent multiple times. As for the rate, we decided to take a 7YR ARM at 6.875, watching the 10 year go up by a tenth of a percent on some days wasn’t too much fun.
Holy moly, now thats a first sight. 7 year lease and still showing properly paid.
Have you asked Nissan what the $800 is that they are asking for ? Have they provided a letter with any breakdown of that charge ?
Also, you probably had online access account with nmac. What do you see when you log back in ?
$992 payment, hoping it was an armada
The image you posted shows it as current / never late.
Is there a collection agency reporting under a separate trade line? If yes, they can only report for 7 years from the DOFD (date of first delinquency, which is the most recent month the account was late and never brought current).
But there can’t be because there’s no way to have an ~800 FICO with an open collection account – unless of course they’re using FICO 9 (aka, credit participation trophy). 
Pull your actual reports from the bureaus directly from https://www.annualcreditreport.com
Despite the name, you can get all three reports free every week.
This sounds like a DTI matter rather than a credit obstacle. If that’s the case, have Nissan send you a $0 balance letter and submit that to Underwriting via your loan processor.
Have you tried escalating with Nissan to confirm that it’s not just a screw up on their part? Like others have pointed out, there are a lot of things that don’t make sense such as payments being made up until recently and account being current and suddenly going into collection 7 years later?
Also ask them for a copy of the original contract (probably 36 months?) and detailed accounting from either lease inception or at least the time the car was traded in.
Not sure if pulling CARFAX showing change of ownership can possibly convince them but possibly worth a shot.
Good luck!
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For Nissan to be willing to “settle” for $800 I wonder if it’s an unpaid dispo fee plus interest that somehow lives on. Big miscommunication between the wife/dealer/Nissan on trading vs grounding…
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Term in Months & Monthly Payment are zero. Some weird stuff for sure. Maybe the car was returned to Nissan, but they never closed the account due to some outstanding charge and all these “payments” have never actually happened. And Nissan never sent this $800 into collection.
Edit: looks like it was a trade, not grounding.
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