how to resolve problems and improve your credit history

How to resolve problems

If your credit report is out of date or inaccurate in any way you can e-mail, telephone or write to the credit reference agency concerned. The information should be marked as “disputed” until your query is resolved. The problem must be resolved within 28 days. You may wish to check the What are your rights? section of this site.

You may also wish to contact the lender which provided the information to the credit reference agency and ask them to make sure the information is changed. It may speed things up if you provide any supporting evidence you have e.g. a copy of an Order of Discharge or Annulment or confirmation that an entry should read differently from a lender.

Tips on improving your credit history

If the information on your credit report is factually correct, you can’t change it. However, there are steps you can take to improve the situation which will help you obtain credit and also get the best interest rates.

Voters’ roll
Credit accounts
Credit applications
Provide your full address history
Court judgments
Add a Notice of Correction
Address links
Financial associations
Aliases
Credit report facts and fiction

Voters’ roll
Make sure you are recorded on the electoral roll at your current address – lenders use this to help establish that you live where you say you do. Make sure that any voters’ roll registrations at previous addresses are “closed” i.e. the entry shows the date that you stopped being registered.

Credit accounts
Make sure payments are up to date on your accounts – if you have late payments, try to pay them off. If you have credit cards that you don’t use, with large credit limits, it may be worth closing them – lenders may consider it risky to lend to people who have access to lots of credit which they can use and not be able to pay off.

Credit applications
Don’t make multiple applications for credit. Searches are kept for between one and two years. A significant number of searches could lead lenders to believe that you are desperate for credit or even that a fraud may be planned – fraudsters often make multiple applications to get access to lots of credit without intending to pay it back.

It there are duplicate searches or details of applications that you have not made, ask for them to be deleted – credit application searches will be used in credit scoring.

Provide your full address history
Provide your full address history when asked for it. If you leave out addresses, the chances are the lender will be able to see the information at them anyway. If you miss addresses out, lenders may think a fraud is being planned.

Court judgments
If you have had court judgments in the past, make sure they are paid off and marked as satisfied.

Add a Notice of Correction
A Notice of Correction is an explanatory statement that can be added to entries on your credit report and will be provided to any lender who sees that entry. You can use this to explain why any late payments are on your file or why any gaps in your credit history have appeared e.g. you lived abroad for a period of time. If you add a Notice of Correction lenders must read it before making a decision.

Address links
Make sure that links to other addresses are accurate and reflect your true address history. Query any addresses that you have never had any connection with.

Financial associations
Make sure that any connections with other people are correct and if they no longer exist, ask for them to be removed. Lenders may take the credit report information about anyone you are financially connected with into consideration. Remember that if your financial associate has a strong credit history, this may work to your advantage, particularly if you have little or no information in your own name.

Aliases
Check that the list of other names you have been known by only includes names you have actually had.

Credit report facts and fiction

I don’t have any information on my credit report so I’m bound to be accepted.
Reports with little information on are often referred to as “thin” reports. Having little credit history can put lenders off accepting an application from you – they will find it difficult to authenticate that you are who you say you are or establish whether you have made repayments on time in the past. Always make sure you are on the electoral roll at your address and send a statement, called a Notice of Correction, to the credit reference agency explaining why there is little information on your report. This can be added and seen by lenders in the future. Being financially connected to someone with a good credit history can also help.

I have loads of credit and it’s all up to date so I should be accepted for a credit card.
Having a good repayment history will always help you get credit in the future. Just be wary that you haven’t got access to too much credit or that you don’t appear to owe too much because lenders might believe that you could become over-indebted and they do have to lend responsibly.