Mortgage Company and what they are reporting

I have been having trouble getting financed for loans and I paid to get my credit report. My mortgage lender is reporting that my High Credit is what my home cost, PLUS the interest that will occur over the 30 years of my loan. Isn't it supposed to report what the prinicipal of the loan is? I have talked with other mortgage companies trying to refinance and they said they couldn't do anything until I had my mortgage company fix their mistake or false reporting. I did an investigation through Equifax, after a few weeks they write me back with another credit report saying "We have researched the credit account, the results are.." and the only thing that changed was they minused one mortgage payment off the total and that was it. It should have taken off 50 grand. I called the mortgage company today and they told me I would have to get back with the credit reporting agency that they would have to take care of it cause there was nothing they could do about it. Please help.
Should I get a lawyer or waste the time going through the credit reporting agency yet again??

Thank you,
Caneil

[HomeGuru]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Caneil:
I have been having trouble getting financed for loans and I paid to get my credit report. My mortgage lender is reporting that my High Credit is what my home cost, PLUS the interest that will occur over the 30 years of my loan. Isn't it supposed to report what the prinicipal of the loan is? I have talked with other mortgage companies trying to refinance and they said they couldn't do anything until I had my mortgage company fix their mistake or false reporting. I did an investigation through Equifax, after a few weeks they write me back with another credit report saying "We have researched the credit account, the results are.." and the only thing that changed was they minused one mortgage payment off the total and that was it. It should have taken off 50 grand. I called the mortgage company today and they told me I would have to get back with the credit reporting agency that they would have to take care of it cause there was nothing they could do about it. Please help.
Should I get a lawyer or waste the time going through the credit reporting agency yet again??

Thank you,
Caneil<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Hire an attorney because you do not have time on your side and historically it takes a long time to resolve credit report discrepancies. There are also Federal laws that apply and your attorney can reference them in his letter to these culprits. You are correct in that the lender must report what your outstanding debt is at the time of reporting. In this case, your outstanding debt would be the principal loan balance and not any other figure especially from your Truth-In-Lending Statement.

Both the lender and the credit reporting agency have the power indivdually to correct the error. The lender just needs to do some investigation and write to Equifax to advise them of the correct loan balance. Equifax is obligated to make the change once the lender notifies them. You can also write directly to Equifax and they must correct the error in the same manner.