someone else's debt at my address

carpool72

Hello,

Just need a quick bit of info from those in the know. My b-in-law used to live in our house and has a problem 'debt' which happened while he was living here. He hired a car, returned it no problem then a month later received a letter saying they were charging an additional £100 for damages. He rejected the charge and we thought it was all sorted, but now he's received a letter from a debt collection agency saying they'll take him to court if he doesn't pay. He's adamant that it's sorted and we don't need to worry - what's concerning me is that as he has the same surname at the same address it might affect my oh's & my credit records. Having finally got to the stage where my old trangressions are just about wiped, I don't want to be dealing with someone else's!
Can anyone put my mind at rest?

C

Crispy_Ambulance

It shouldn't affect your credit score - but the best thing is to contact Experian and Equifax to get a copy of your credit report and have a look at it.

https://www.experian.co.uk
https://www.equifax.co.uk

Martin has got an article about credit scoring on the site somewhere I think but I don't know how to do links!

If someone appears on your report with whom you have no financial connection, you can write to the company who issued the report to dissassociate yourself from them.

Hope that helps.

d.ylan

I once had a similar issue, it was easily solved in my case by simply filing a 'Notice of Dissociation' with the person in question who shared my surname.

Pretty straight forward, if you contact experian/equifax they should be able to send you the paperwork, but if I recall, I did it online.

Hope this helps somewhat, that's the form that will best protect your credit rating from the affects of the other person sharing your name as far as I'm aware.

southernscouser

As others have said get your credit reports for yourself and OH and check for anything that shouldn't be on there!

Did that letter, or any others arrive through your door? If so I would return them to the sender with a note saying "not known at this address". I know it would be easier to give them to your OH's brother but this way you are disassociating yoursleves from him.