Does A Financial Association Affect Credit Score?

Abbymoo

My OH used to have a joint account with his mother. They fell out and he removed her from the account.
We're currently buying a house and just to reassure ourselves the mortgage would go through OK we checked his credit score last night, it's dropped by around 140 points and we can't work out why. There's been no missed payments, no new credit agreements or anything since it was higher. The only thing I could think of was if his mother's association could have anything to do with it, is that possible?

Thanks!

notanewuser

Abbymoo wrote: »

My OH used to have a joint account with his mother. They fell out and he removed her from the account.
We're currently buying a house and just to reassure ourselves the mortgage would go through OK we checked his credit score last night, it's dropped from 140 points and we can't work out why. There's been no missed payments, no new credit agreements or anything since it was higher. The only thing I could think of was if his mother's association could have anything to do with it, is that possible?

Thanks!

Absolutely. Really stupid idea to share an account.

He'll need to file letters of disassociation with each of the 3 credit reference agencies.

Abbymoo

Thanks, I thought it might be but he just kept saying it wasn't possible. I'll show him this thread. Just hope it hasn't totally killed our mortgage chances

CLAPTON

is the association with his mother showing on his credit files?

if so they will check her credit files as well as his as part of any credit check.

what exact do his credit records say?

Abbymoo

CLAPTON wrote: »

is the association with his mother showing on his credit files?

if so they will check her credit files as well as his as part of any credit check.

what exact do his credit records say?

Yes she's on the financially associated list. There's only her on it.
Would we be able to see if any searches have been carried out if she'd initiated them?

jamesd

She can't initiate searches of his credit report. When lenders ask for his credit report they will automatically also get hers because of the financial association.

Tell the prospective mortgage lender about the lack of association and they may be willing to disregard the link in the credit record even before the credit reference agencies remove it.

Abbymoo

jamesd wrote: »

She can't initiate searches of his credit report. When lenders ask for his credit report they will automatically also get hers because of the financial association.

Tell the prospective mortgage lender about the lack of association and they may be willing to disregard the link in the credit record even before the credit reference agencies remove it.

Thanks. But just to be sure, having her associated with him can bring his score down if she applies for credit or misses payments etc?

CLAPTON

Abbymoo wrote: »

Thanks. But just to be sure, having her associated with him can bring his score down if she applies for credit or misses payments etc?

prospective lenders will look at her files and draw conclusions based on their lending criteria.

he needs to contact each credit agency and explain that there is no longer any financial association and have it removed from his files

Abbymoo

CLAPTON wrote: »

prospective lenders will look at her files and draw conclusions based on their lending criteria.

he needs to contact each credit agency and explain that there is no longer any financial association and have it removed from his files

Yeah I appreciate that
I'm just trying to find an explanation for his actual score going down when there's no reason we can think of.

JimmyTheWig

Abbymoo wrote: »

Thanks. But just to be sure, having her associated with him can bring his score down if she applies for credit or misses payments etc?

Depends on what you mean by "score".
There is no single "score". Different organisations will rate different things as more important than others.
The score that you buy from a credit reference agency is just one interpretation of how good your credit report is. A lender will have a different view, to some extent at least.
No-one knows exactly how each organisation scores people, but a financial association with someone who has a poor credit report is almost definitely going to look bad from a lender's point of view.
So if the association is no longer current then get it removed.

Interestingly, though, I don't believe that financial associations affect the score that you buy from a credit reference agency. I think this is one of the problems with these bought scores.
So if it is a score from a credit reference agency that you have paid for that has gone down then I would say this has nothing to do with his mother.

droiderm

I would tend to agree with that.
I know the scores are irrelevant, but I guess there is a chance that any of the scores may have some correlation with what score a particular lender may use.

One of the biggest variations in my score seems to be related on how much revolving credit I am currently using. If there aren't any major changes in your credit usage/missed payments etc, I wouldn't worry about it from a sole scoring point of view.

But do get the financial association removed from a more general point.