Errors that could cost you a mortgage

[citizenB]

 

Thousands of Britons are being turned down for mortgages and loans because of incorrect records held on them by the three big credit reference agencies.

 

The mistakes can have a devastating impact, jeopardising mortgage applications and putting home-buying dreams at risk, and forcing those turned down for loans and credit cards into the hands of expensive payday lenders.

 

Files held by the three main agencies, Experian, Equifax and Callcredit, record people’s history of securing and paying off debt and provide a score which is used to determine eligibility for loans, mortgages, credit cards and mobile phone contracts.

 

Awareness about lenders’ reliance on these records has grown in recent years, particularly as banks and building societies have become more stringent in their checks of potential mortgage borrowers.

 

However, even those who believe that they have played by the rules are being branded a bad risk to lend money to because of unexpected errors on their files.

 

 

 

Not on the roll

 

Most people realise that their credit score will plummet if they do not appear on the electoral roll at their present address. Lenders want to be sure that you live where you say you do and how long you have lived there to protect against identity fraud.

 

However, people who diligently make sure they are on the list of voters are discovering that, when they check their credit file, this is not registered. James Jones, of Experian, says problems often arise when addresses are recorded differently on the electoral roll compared with the Royal Mail’s postcode address file.

 

Even small differences can result in you being marked as unregistered on the electoral roll and there are fears that a huge change in the voter registration system this summer could lead to even more omissions.

 

Until now, one person in every household has been responsible for registering everybody else who lives at that address using a single form. Under the new system, each person will be required to register individually.

 

 

For the full article -

 

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/money/article4145294.ece?shareToken=bd142f84e62bcef60ccc3555768bc420

[citizenB]

I had a problem obtaining my credit file due to a slight difference between the address on the electoral roll and the Royal Mail Data base.

 

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My Response...

 

 

I am not quite sure what to make of your statement that my details are “incorrectly matched” against the Royal Mail database. The address at the top of this letter is the one used for all official documents, council tax, utilities and electoral roll purposes. It will also have been used for any company with whom I do business. The fact that the Royal Mail doesn’t have sufficient space in its data base to include the full name of the village and the county is totally irrelevant. It should be more than sufficient for me to just give you the house name and postcode to enable you to locate me on your data base. So how you store this information is irrelevant as far as I can see, unless of course you will be using this as a reason to not supply information requested.

 

Finally, I find it quite unprofessional of you to address me by my given name. We are not friends or related in anyway and I have not advised that you may address me in this manner.

 

[BRIGADIER2JCS]

The old misconception that the individuals "credit score" determines acceptance for a credit card /loan persists, the "score" by the individual on their CRA file is intended only to be a "day to day" indication of how a credit application may be viewed by a prospective lender.

 

 

It correct to say that electoral roll data is very important, so to are number of other parts of the CRA file, in particular the amount of available credit if the amount used is close to the total available it will be detrimental, a large number of credit applications, late payments or defaults will also cause problems, it is these factors that will affect the ability to get credit and it is these that potential lenders use together with their in house "rating" systems to judge the viability of lending to the individual not the score seen on the CRA file.

[citizenB]

http://conversation.which.co.uk/consumer-rights/credit-reference-mistakes-are-costing-consumers/