Your credit file & credit reference agencies
What are credit reference agencies?
Credit reference agencies hold information regarding people’s credit agreements and any court action or default notices that may have been applied to a person’s record.
Loan companies use credit reference agencies to determine whether or not someone is suitable to borrow money. Information cannot be passed on to the company without your prior consent.
Your credit file
Whenever you apply for a loan, the loan company will check your credit file to determine whether or not they can accept your application.
The loan company will normally look for information including:
- Do you have a County Court Judgement (CCJ)?
- Do you have any arrears on existing loans?
- Do you have a default notice?
- Are you on the electoral role?
Other information a loan company may want to know includes:
- Are you employed?
- Are you a homeowner?
- Your age?
- Length of time at your current address?
All these factors are brought together and better known as credit scoring.
It is illegal for anyone to obtain information from your credit file without your consent. Information on your file comes under the Data Protection Act.
If you have any defaults or CCJ’s applied to your credit file, these will generally remain on your file for 6 years from when they were first registered. CCJ’s can remain on your file for longer if it takes longer than 6 years to repay and the creditor decides to re-register it on your file.
Once a debt under a CCJ is repaid, you can apply for a ’Notice of paid and satisfied’ to be applied to your file so that if you make an application for a loan, the loan company can see that the debt under the CCJ has been repaid.
Three companies hold your credit file, these are:
Experian Ltd
Consumer Help Service
PO Box 8000
Nottingham NG80 7WF
Tel: 0870 241 6212
www.experian.co.uk
Equifax plc
Credit File Advice Centre
PO Box 1140
Bradford
BD1 5US
Tel: 0870 010 0583
www.equifax.co.uk
Callcredit plc
Consumer Services Team
PO Box 491
Leeds
LS1 5XX
Tel: 0870 060 1414
www.callcredit.plc.uk
You can contact these companies and request a copy of your credit file. There is a small cost of £2.00 by letter and by ordering over the internet, or £2.50 by phone.
It is always wise to keep up to date with the information on your credit file to ensure that the information held about you is correct.
Call our specialist debt team on 08000 915 004 to find out how we could help you.