MYTH or FACT: A home phone line improves your credit rating?

Anihilator

The homeline probably doesnt improve your credit rating however it will influence lenders as a home phone is a tie to an address and gives them suitable assurance of where you live and tracking you down.

If its in the compannies name this wont apply as much. You also need to be careful as it could have employment and tax effects for both you and the wifes employer if it cant easily be shown that the second line is fully business.

Morglin

I asked a relative, who works in a bank, about this - although a landline is not actually part of the credit scoring, lenders prefer them as they suggest a settled lifestyle, and as people can change their mobiles a lot, a landline makes it easier (usually) for the bank to contact a borrower.

So, it may make a difference to whether some lenders accept you or not.

Lin

boliston

I've been wondering about a link between having a landline & credit score, but I think fewer and fewer people these days seem to use "landlines" as mobiles seem to be the default way to contact someone.

Obviously this does not apply to most businesses as landlines still seem to rule supreme in the office environment.

I have a BT phoneline purely to enable me to have ADSL and it's been about 2 years since anything apart from my ADSL modem has been plugged into it, mainly as the landline seems to be a magnet for "junk" calls. Thankfully my mobile seems to have escaped most junk calls, probably because they cost a lot more to make calls to.