Dear Liz: I’m a Realtor with a client who has a 719 credit score. If we could get that score one point higher, he could save $5,000 on his home loan. His score was 45 points higher four months ago, and the only change was that one lender pulled his credit a month ago. Can we dispute the huge drop given that nothing else happened? What else can he try?

Answer: It’s extremely unlikely that one inquiry dropped his score by 45 points. Chances are something else changed on his credit reports. Check the balances and credit limits his credit card issuers are reporting. Any narrowing of the gap between the two (such as higher balances or lower limits) could have contributed to the sudden drop.

You can’t really dispute a credit score drop, but if incorrect information is being reported by his lenders, you can dispute that.

In any case, he should be able to boost his score by getting those balances down, preferably below 10% of his credit limits. Even if he pays his balances in full every month, he needs to be concerned about his credit utilization, since the balances reported to the credit bureaus are typically the balances on his last statements.

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