How much will a charged off account hurt my credit score?
A charge off is like any other derogatory account. The impact that it has on your credit scores depends on the age of the item and the overall content of your credit report.
The Mitigating Factors
The more recent a derogatory event the more impact it will have on your scores. And the more established your credit the less of an impact a single item will have. In addition, it is important to understand that the more isolated a derogatory item is the less it will weigh on your scores and your credit repair progress.
FICO Logic
This fact provides a handy insight into the workings of the FICO scoring model. A single derogatory item will cause your score to drop, often significantly, when it first shows up. But if it is isolated, and the rest of your credit is okay, FICO will bring your score back up fairly quickly as the first few months pass. The logic here is that the event was not indicative of an overall financial problem.
The Credit Repair Effect
The credit repair lesson is that although bad things may have happened in the past you stand to benefit from cleaning up the balance of your report and isolating the legitimate derogatory items as much as possible.