The proposal of two models for simulating the behaviour of soils subjected to secondary consolidation (creep) is here described. In normal circumstances, settlements due to secondary consolidation account for only a small fraction of the total settlements, having a magnitude of a small percentage of the primary consolidation settlements due to compression. However, in a situation where very soft organic clays are under compression, secondary consolidation may be a much more important factor. The models are implemented in a fully coupled finite element code where the governing equations are discretized in time in accordance to what proposed by the characteristic-based split method, well known in Fluid Mechanics, obtaining a stabilizing split-type method. In this way, pressure oscillations (wiggles)-usually present in consolidation problems-have been eliminated. The first model assumes that the soil skeleton consists of a linear spring in series with a Kelvin body: the spring is representative of an elastic model, whereas the Kelvin body keeps count of a time-progressing strain, once the primary consolidation has stopped. The second model considers some Maxwell chains in parallel. Their efficiency is proved studying the long-term behaviour of soft soils; the results, compared with in situ measurements, show a good accuracy in predicting creep phenomena for soils