Creditors keeping a record of your bankruptcy after 6 years

jonathon01

I know that the Credit Reference Agencies will keep a record of your bankruptcy and associated accounts which were settled as a result of the bankruptcy, for 6 years after you have been discharged, after which the bankruptcy record and all the associated accounts will disappear.

Are the lenders who lost money because of the bankruptcy allowed to keep their own records of the bankruptcy and the defaulted account, for an indefinite period or do they too have to erase their records after 6 years?

E.g. Say a Barclays account was settled by virtue of a bankruptcy, then the bankrupt maintained a pristine credit report post-discharge. After 7 years following discharge (so no negative information with CRAs), if the ex-bankrupt applied to Barclays for credit, would Barclays be permitted to refer to their own records that the applicant had been bankrupt and they had lost money, even though the event was more than 6 years prior to the new application, and consequently decline the application based soley on this information?

Bethankim

dont know totally, except for mortgages. as mortgage lenders ask if you have been bankrupt, although they do give discharged bankrupts mortgages even 6 years down the line - its is harder to find a high street lender that would give a decent rate of interest even with a good deposit.

as for general credit i presume they can only go by your credit report and how much you have done to repair it post discharge.

fiveyearplan

I suppose they can keep their personal records for as long as they like but they just check the credit reference agencies - I wouldn't think they know what other departments in the bank are up to (ie lending probably doesn't keep in touch with their bad debts).

rog2

Interesting question. :think: :think:

I suppose it should be noted that Credit Reference Agency files are not necessarily definitive guides as to the creditworthiness of a debtor, or intended debtor. They are there to assist the 'lender' in making a decision, but the final decision is that of the Lender and the Lender alone.
Individual creditors can, as fyp states, keep records for as long as they wish, though the minimum obligatory term is, usually six years - in case of queries. There is, as far as I know, no maximum term for them to keep internal records, although they should not make those records available to the public domain, for example via a Credit Reference Agency, after the six year Limitation Period has elapsed.
Even without records, I am sure that a Creditor' decision to lend to somebody who he knows to have defaulted on a debt (to that creditor) no matter how long ago, would, indeed be influenced by that knowledge.

dojoman

jonathon01 wrote: »

I know that the Credit Reference Agencies will keep a record of your bankruptcy and associated accounts which were settled as a result of the bankruptcy, for 6 years after you have been discharged, after which the bankruptcy record and all the associated accounts will disappear.

I thought it was 6 years from when you are declared BR?

Trom

Under the DPA, they can't keep information for more than is necessary. So in this case, after the 6 years.

jonathon01

Exactly! I recall reading somewhere that a company should not normally retain records on an individual once the records are no longer relevant. However, if I were a lender I think I might be able to successfully argue that it is relevant for me to premanantly keep a record that someone went bankrupt and caused me to lose £xs and because of this I might not want to ever lend to them again, regardless of what their current credit report/score is.

fiveyearplan

dojoman wrote: »

I thought it was 6 years from when you are declared BR?

You are correct, it is 6 years from BR date not discharge date.

dojoman

fiveyearplan wrote: »

You are correct, it is 6 years from BR date not discharge date.

Thank you, thought it was. :T