"Agents warned tenants' unpaid bills can damage firm's credit rating"

tbs624

Letting Agent Today reported on this one last week

The LA in question managed to get their company's credit records amended but it's an interesting article, given that the bills at a property managed by an LA are either the responsibility of the T or of the LL.

Source

jjlandlord

To me this is really about the flaws of credit rating and dodgy actions by utility companies, as comments to the article suggest this is a not-so-rare tactic.

The reaction of the credit-rating agency is also quite telling: "They were not prepared to amend his firm’s credit rating and ‘did not accept that there is any need for them to verify whether debts registered against companies are genuine or not but just accept the word of the data supplier who may be acting maliciously".
I believe that this comes from the same credit-rating agency that recently proposed to work with landlords and agents to include rent payments in credit score...

princeofpounds

Yes, this is shabby behaviour by the utility who just simply should not have swapped the names on the debt unilaterally.

And just as shabby by the credit rating agency who claim to 'just follow orders' as far as the data goes, when they are supposed to exercise more judgment than that.

I have thought for some time that there is an imbalance on these sorts of things, with credit rating agencies and lenders getting away with putting inaccurate data too lightly. Often you are only left with the option of 'putting a note' on a damaged credit file to contest it, which is often a worse-than-useless remedy.

There should be some sort of penalty for situations like this, where the utility company is almost trying to extort the money from someone who doens't owe it.

A rare instance where I feel genuinely sorry for an LA

sandsni

Well, if it encourages LAs to take a little bit more responsibility for the tenants they "reference" and "credit check", rather than just taking a fat fee from the LL and then passing the buck as soon as any problems arise (and similarly, not accepting any responsibility for the LLs they represent), I don't see that it's such a bad thing.