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| What is a Credit File ? A credit file is a record of the circumstances and behaviour of an individual in relation to credit matters. Topics covered by a credit file include: Appearance on the UK Electoral Roll Details of any county court judgments or Scottish decrees Details of any bankruptcies, IVAs and administration orders Details of some home re-possessions Information about existing credit accounts Topics NOT covered by a credit file include: Information about race, religion, sexual preference or political persuasion Information about medical, criminal or employment records Blacklists or opinions on credit worthiness Recommendations to accept or decline applications Can I see my Credit File ? The Consumer Credit Act 1974 gives you the right to see, for £2, a copy of the information held about you by a credit reference agency. Send your name, address and date of birth, with a £2 cheque or postal order to: Consumer Help Service, Experian, P.O. Box 8000, Nottingham NG1 5GX AND Consumer Enquiries, Equifax Europe plc, P.O. Box 3001, Glasgow G81 2DT Your information will be posted out to your home address within 7 working days. Can I Repair my Credit File ?Having obtained and read your credit file, there may be some things which are incorrect or outdated that you want to change. If there is incorrect information on your file, you should contact the organisation which provided the information concerned. For example, if your query concerns a county court judgment, you should contact the county court concerned. The court can issue you a certificate of satisfaction if you have paid the judgment and can give you other details, such as the name of the plaintiff; information which is not known to the credit reference agency. If your query involves a bankruptcy, contact the Official Receiver who originally dealt with the case. Queries about voluntary arrangements should go to the supervisor of the individual arrangement. If your query involves credit account information, you need to contact the lender. Agencies cannot amend credit account information without the lender's authorisation, and lenders need to amend their own records, too. So contacting the lender direct is the most efficient way of sorting out any query. If you are not sure who to contact, the credit reference agency can give you the name of someone who will help. If there are entries on your credit file which are not yours but belong to a family member or other person living at your address (previously or currently), you need to have a 'disassociation' created to break the links between your credit file and theirs. Ask the credit reference agency to do this for you. Once a disassociation has been created, lenders see only details of the person being searched and anyone with whom that person has a financial link when any subsequent credit reference check is carried out. Details of the disassociated family member or members are not provided. Beware of claims from specialist companies that they can 'clean up' your credit file, irrespective of whether the information on it is correct or not. Credit repair companies claim to be able to rid people of county court judgments or Scottish decrees. These stay on record for six years from the date of judgment. They can be cancelled if the sum is paid within a month of judgment or if a person genuinely has not received the relevant summons. But do not be tempted to break the law by claiming that a summons was not received if it was, because an unreceived summons is likely to be re-served and the effect of beginning the legal process again can prolong the length of time a county court judgment is recorded. If there were special circumstances involved when problems were registered against you, and you would like lenders to take these into account (for example a family bereavement, redundancy, business failure or divorce), you can add a notice to your file. This is a statement of up to 200 words in which you can explain or expand upon the information held about you. The credit reference agency adds the notice to a person's credit file and supplies the notice to any lender who enquires about that person. This ensures that any future application for credit is "referred" when being processed, in other words, the notice must be read and taken into account by a lender. The notice is also sent to every lender who has searched the person concerned in the last six months. |