Who writes the site
Pages are written and checked by the Credit Score Ladder editorial team. We sign as a team rather than inventing bylines. Every page shows the date it was last reviewed.
What counts as a source
Facts come from the organizations that set the rules or publish the data: the agencies behind the loan programs (HUD for FHA loans, Fannie Mae for conventional loans, the VA), the regulators (the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Federal Trade Commission, the Federal Reserve), the companies that build the scores (FICO and VantageScore) and the credit bureaus' own published research. Each page lists its sources with dates. When a fact is disputed or still changing, as with state medical-debt laws, we say so and date it.
We do not use figures we cannot trace to a source, and we do not fill gaps with estimates presented as facts. Where a page gives an example, such as a down payment on a given home price, it says it is an example.
Opinion and advice
Pages give a view on what is worth doing at a given score and what is not. That view is general and educational. It is not financial advice for your situation, and no page promises approval or a rate.
Independence
No lender, card issuer, credit bureau or score company pays for coverage or reviews pages before publication. The site has no affiliate links and takes no payment for placement. If that changes, every affected page will say so plainly.
Updates
Rates by score band refresh daily. Quarterly data and loan rules are rechecked when the source publishes a new version. Pages are re-reviewed when a rule they describe changes, and the review date changes with them.
Corrections
If something looks wrong, tell us, with the page and what you think is incorrect. We check the claim against the original source. If we were wrong, we fix the page, update its review date and, when the error could have affected a decision, add a note at the end of the page describing what changed.