MSE News: Rent payments to go on your credit file

JimmyTheWig

So you could ask for a separate agreement if you don't trust your flatmates.

But still expect the landlord to trust them? Hmmm.

nzseries1

Oh god, no. This is scary indeed.

I had a "rent arrears" letter late last year which was a mistake (agent's data entry error). Two calls to the agent fixed it... but if it was on my credit file that I'd missed a payment then I can just imagine what a nightmare it would be to get them to fix it. I can't get my agent to do anything at the best of times.

This is a sad day for tenants everywhere.

Notmyrealname

PasturesNew wrote: »

Licence for "cash only" LLs to proliferate... and we know how fabulous they all are.

I'm a cash only LL. I pay tax, I maintain the property I let. A tenant came round to me to tell me about a radiator that was leaking. I took her back home with the tools in my car and fixed it straight away.

Every time she comes to pay the rent I ask her if there's anything that needs doing.

I pay for annual gutter cleaning, everything gets done as it should be because it is not in my interests to let the property fall into disrepair as it not only costs me more to fix it but devalues the property as well.

smala01

About 2 years ago i had a problem with my experian credit file of a credit facility (£20k) with city bank still showing as available despite the account being closed. This caused me to be turned down for a small overdraft facility on my current account which i like to have in place in case there is an unexpected Direc Debit etc.

I like to think of myself as financially astute, ascertive and a reasonable knowledge of how large companies operate. It took me nearly 3 months to get City bank to:

1) understand what a credit file was, and how an open credit line (not defaulted) can effect other financial applciations
2) understand they owned the data
3) understand they were responsible for correcting the data
4) contact experian and fix the data

Can you imagine dealing with your local letting agent fool when a mistake occurs, or a dispute is in place?

A regular person will be homeless or living in a hotel through no fault of his own because he cannot get his credit file fixed in time to be able secure another rental property.

Smala01

b00geyman_2

I assume that all CRA's will soon be jumping on this bandwagon. But it is flawed, got to assume that those people in reciept of housing benefit are going to be hammered when the local councils take their usual 8 weeks to get going, and then where are they going to go when the lease runs out........yep the councils homelessness list, costing us the taxpayers even more money as the coucncils have a statutory duty to put them somewhere......and they use private landlords....ermmmmmm....

So bad idea, unless you are a shareholder in CRA plc...in which case you make money.....when are the CRA's going to be properly regulated.

tbs624

If the T can't get a new PRS tenancy because experian shows them as having been late with their rent then the Council will probably view them as effectively having made themselves homeless........

Pincher

This is a ludicrous idea.

Our main (long standing, high profile) local agent does it this way: They take their commission (all of it) in the first month. Surprise, surprise, they take the first rental payment and bank it. The next eleven monthly payments go straight into the landlord's bank account, unless he pays more for the letting agent to handle it.

So the letting agent has no data, and doesn't want to know, until renewal next year. From what I can gether, the smaller agents have even less IT infrastructure.

The Edifice Complex
=============

If they really want to make it work, they need to start a rent processing company. The smaller agents can buy even more services from it, such as logging rental contracts, Terms and Conditions etc. They can do the Deposit as well.
To go further, any fault reports and promises to fix can be tracked as well.

The tenant has to pay the rent through the system.
I expect DD and standing order are free, but manually using debit card or credit card will be charged a fee.

This immediately brings transparency to the whole process.

The Edifice Complex is just PayPal with a few more features.

Experian_company_representative

Let me address some of the points raised above...

We won't be loading historical data, so we certainly won't be linking people to their ex-partners.

We will work with the providers on data quality measures, as we do with mainstream lenders. We'll also be running an education campaign to make sure tenants understand the opportunities and risks.

Don't forget, it is a legal requirement for shared personal data to be accurate and up to date so we'll all be working to that end.

If someone gets their credit report and highlights a discrepancy with rent data we will mark the data as disputed while we investigate for them.

Importantly, safeguards will be in place to help make sure delays in the payment of housing benefit don't lead to missed payments being registered.

We want all tenants to be able to benefit from this going forwards, so no one loses out.

James Jones

corbyboy

But who exactly will be able to report data? Will individual private landlords be able to report data? That seems like too much power for one person to have over another.

smala01

James, thanks for making your presence on this thread. I appreciate you may be limited with what you can post here.

Experian_company_representative wrote: »

We will work with the providers on data quality measures, as we do with mainstream lenders. We'll also be running an education campaign to make sure tenants understand the opportunities and risks.

Don't forget, it is a legal requirement for shared personal data to be accurate and up to date so we'll all be working to that end.

James - a "legal" requirement is only as good as the penality applied for breaching it. As we are talking civil law here an independent individual is hardly likely to seek redress in the courts due to cost/risk/complexity - so the public rely on your "process" to safeguard what is fair.

The point here is that the consequnce of a problem occuring in housing is much greater (roof over head) than that of not being able to get a loan.

The first an individual will know of a problem with your data is once they have already made substantial contractual commitments to move home.

Hence you owe a much greater duty of care to this particular dataset, than to the regular financial data you already hold.

I have first hand experience of trying to fix "wrong" data with your company and your process (timescales)is woeful. In my case thank goodness a roof over my head was not in jepody

Experian_company_representative wrote: »

If someone gets their credit report and highlights a discrepancy with rent data we will mark the data as disputed while we investigate for them.

Your experience so far is with large blue chip companies that have robust compliance processes to deal with credit reference checking.

Your new market is a family business or individual landlord who will review the credit file. I do not share your confidence that an individual will NOT be disadvantaged when your data is WRONG when being reviewed by non professionals.

Simply putting a disputed flag next to a problem item on your data means nothing - when lettings agents are under no obligation to tell you why you failed a credit check.

In my opinion this is simply palming off your responsibilities onto those that consume your data.

Do you really expect potential landlords to look past rent arrears in black and white on your credit report simply because there is a disputed flag next to it?

Experian_company_representative wrote: »

We want all tenants to be able to benefit from this going forwards, so no one loses out.

James - When we are talking about rent defaults - it should be easy for a tennant to prove to you when your data is wrong.

Ask your management team to commit to reviewing and REMOVING (not a dispute marker) "wrong" data when evidence is produced by the individual within 24hours.

Smala01