5yrs 10mths post IVA

minnimoo_2

Hi

My IVA finished back in 2006 after 3 yrs, during which time I got divorced and moved house, changed name etc. I have just got my credit report through and there is no sign of my IVA. I obviously gave them my old married name plus my addresses over the past couple of years. There are no arrears on anythin, no outstanding loans etc....but my credit score is low. Could this be because I have no credit on record? I am on the electoral role, no CCJ's. It also states that there are no negative factors affecting my score.
How do I improve my credit score? I did just apply for a credit card and was turned down due to a low score.
Cheers

fermi

minnimoo wrote: »

Could this be because I have no credit on record? I am on the electoral role, no CCJ's. It also states that there are no negative factors affecting my score.
How do I improve my credit score? I did just apply for a credit card and was turned down due to a low score.
Cheers

Yep. You need to show a good record of borrowing and repayment.

The IVA and former debts should have just about gone from your reports by now. 6 years from the start of the IVA.

You should really give the Credit Reference Agencies your address details for the past 6 years though rather than just 2. That allows all the data to link up. If you do that you might find your reports are not as clear as you think.

Read Martin's article: Credit Rating: How it works and how to improve it

He was on the radio yesterday advising someone in a very similar position. The advice was to try and get one of the very high interest rate cards, but pay it off each month on DD by spending £50 or so. Or if you can't get one of those, try the CashPlus CreditBuilder type pre-paid cards.

minnimoo_2

Yes thanks for that. When I was giving them all the info i have to say I was suprised that they only asked for 2 addresses. I only moved houses because of flooding !!!!....I dont really want credit cards, im trying to rebuild my credit score..

fermi

For that you need to show you are a good borrower.

That means you need to take out credit and pay it off. Preferably in their eyes making them money as you do.

minnimoo_2

So I have to get one of those high rate ones then....?

fermi

Read the Improve your credit rating section in the main site article I linked to before.

A high high interest card that you always pay in full every month may be part of the way to go.

Having come out of an IVA with now zero credit history, your options are fairly limited. At least until you start to build a record anyway. That has to start somewhere in the short term.

toshtec

Yes if you google bad credit credit card you will be presented with a number of them,

Get one use it and pay off the whole amount monthly say do your weekly shop with it and then pay it off and you will soon see that the credit rate has improved over time.

the cards make notices to the CRA's as and when you make your payments.

For instance I had to get some money fast while I had an IVA my sone gave me his new credit card I made the payments regularlyy and even though he himself has a bad history of credit because I kept making the payments and virtually zerod the card debt they wrote and told him they were increasing his limit to £3k and that was from £800 so it does work thats ok for me as its virtually for my own use but its nearly paid off now and no more credit is going on to it and he is not getting it back or he will max it out rapidly and he does not want to do that, so as you can see even if you do have a bad CRA file it can be affected by regular payments into a crdit card like one of those I said to google for.