Free Legal information and Legal advice
Credit reference agencies have access to the following information:
- The electoral roll which will confirm living at the stated address.
- Register of County Court judgments and bankruptcies which
show whether a person has a court judgment made against him. - Previous or current credit accounts that are held with other lenders
to show whether a person is up to date with payments.
If a person applies for credit up to a maximum of £25,000 and is refused because of a check with a credit reference agency he is entitled to know the details of the credit reference agency involved.
If any of the information a credit reference agency holds is incorrect an application may be made in writing to remove or change the information. Within 28 days of receiving the application, the credit reference agency must:
- Remove the entry
- Amend it.
- Taken no action and explain why.
If the agency refuses to amend the record, a statement (of up to 200 words) may be sent advising why the adverse entry appears on the file. This is known as a "Notice of Correction". The agency must then send a copy of this notice to each lender that searches the file.
If a file has information about people in a family with which a person has no financial connection this can be removed by a notice of Disassociation.
Removing County Court Judgments (CCJ’S)
Records of CCJ'S are kept by the two main credit reference agencies for a period of six years from the date of their inception. After this time they should be removed automatically, and if they have not been, then you can simply write to the credit reference agencies and order that they be removed.
In the UK, the two main credit reference agencies are Experian and Equifax.You should obtain your credit file from both of them. Ensure that you quote your full forename and surname as well as your date of birth and all addresses at which you have resided during the past six years, including postcodes. Send each application with a £2.00 cheque or postal order, payable to the name of that company. The information will be sent to you in about 14 days. Alternatively it can often be obtained on-line.
In order for any record of CCJ'S to be legally removed, you must be able to prove that at least one of the conditions below applies:
- The six year period has expired, and the record should be removed as being out of date.
- The record should not have been lodged in the first place, as the CCJ does not exist, and the record is a mistake.
- The debt to which the CCJ applies has been fully paid off. Here you can insist that the CCJ be removed because you have cleared all of your financial indebtedness.
To apply to have judgments overturned, you should apply on form N244 to the County Court which made the judgment with a supporting statement.
In order that any judgments might be set aside the applicant must have a valid reason, such as not having received the original summons, being unwell or out of the country at the time the summons was issued, or having discharged the debt within a period of 28 days from the original issue of the summons, in which case no record should have been registered.
During the period in which the application is being considered all records of judgments against a person are removed from the records of credit reference agencies. Several more weeks usually pass before the agencies can re-instate these details. Even if the application is unsuccessful, a person will have a period of around 8 weeks during which they have no CCJ'S on record.
