no IRS lien levied, lien on credit report?

[Not_By_Default]

What is the name of your state? California
Location: County of San Bernardino in the State of California

Hi

I'm trying to buy a house and it came up in my credit report that the IRS has a lien against me. (?) I don't and never had an actual lien but the IRS did notify me that they had an intent to levy a lien. I finally got this all cleared up about two years ago or so I thought.

I contacted the accountant that did my taxes and she said to go to the IRS office and ask them for a 'release of lien'. The IRS sent me over to the county recorder's office for them to release it. (?) At this time the IRS told me that everything had been taken care of the year before and I should have no problem at the recorder's office.

The county absolutely could find no record of a lien on file. Not anywhere. How this shows up on the realtor's report and not on the county recorder's file is beyond me.

I went back to the IRS and told them the county had nothing on file and they then said to contact the credit agency to clear it up because they, the IRS, "never actually had levied a lien in the first place." Nevermind that they told me less than 15 minutes prior that the lien issue had been resolved a year ago.

The credit agencies say that unless I have a release of the lien from the IRS they will not even consider doing anything about removing it from my credit file.

The IRS refuses to give me a release of lien saying that I don't need one because there never was a lien; rather (at then time) they "intend to levy on certain assests" albeit they never did.

And although I can somewhat understand this way of their reasoning, it does nothing towards getting the erroneous info off of my credit file.

Clearly the IRS is the over zealous party responsible for putting the lien info into my credit file and just as clearly they refuse to do anything about taking it off since apparently that would be tantamount to admitting they never should've put it there at all? A truly hopeless situation?

Again, at no time did the IRS actually levy a lien against me. However, they did report that they had indeed done so to the credit agencies.

Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

 

[abezon]

Get the IRS to give you a letter stating that it never issued a lien in the first place, so there is no lien to release. Send that to the credit bureau & bank along with a request that the credit bureaus remove the lien from your report.

Why didn't you keep a copy of the lien release you got 2 years ago? And get the county to send you a "conformed copy" after they recorded the release?

 

[Not_By_Default]

RE:
lien release you got 2 years ago

I didn't keep a copy of said document for the simple reason that I never got one because one was never sent. The county says it cannot give me a copy of the recorded release because they don't have anything recorded so as to be released.

As for your suggestion of getting the IRS to give me a letter stating that it never issued a lien in the first place, so there is no lien to release; could you please be a bit more specific on just how it is that I might go about doing this???

Simply asking them to verify in writing that there wasn't any lien to begin with so that I can take it to the credit bureau -- as I have already asked them to do -- didn't get me anywhere at all. They fail to see the need for such a letter and hence refuse to draft one.

In fact, the IRS told me the 'mistake' had to have been made by the credit bureau and as such the latter should be held responsible for fixing it. I pointed out that the IRS directly reported the information to the credit bureau(s) and not the other way around....

As you may be able to see this manner of reasoning just didn't work.
Thanks for your input