Credit rating and addresses

1.8T

Hi everyone,

I don't know if this is the correct section for this, admins please feel free to move it to a more suitable location.

Anyway, I am a prospective first time buyer. I am looking to buy next year sometime and am starting to look at mortgages. As preparation for this I got my credit rating and report from equifax. My credit score is 427 which is in the good category apparently. I have never had any debt or loans (student loan aside which isn't all that much anyway).

One of the things that is marked as fair rather than good on my report is my address history. I finished university last year where I stayed at 4 different addresses in 5 years and currently stay in a flat with my partner, in between times I stayed at my parents. During all this time I have never changed my bank account address, passport, driving licence or anything like that from my parents address for the simple reason I think its too much hassle and seeing as I was moving quite frequently I didn't really want bank letters scattered all over the place, I prefer them going to my parents house where I know they are safe.

Now this gets a bit more complicated. I did not always register on the electoral role at university, I know I did in the general election year (2010?) but am unsure about the other years. I am currently on the electoral register at my parents house but am registered to pay council tax at the flat I share with my partner. My report says:

You do have Electoral Roll information at your current address. However, your information indicates that you no longer live at that address. Postive confirmation that you are still at your Electoral Roll address is widely used as a primary identity check. Please contact your Local Authority to have your information updated. In addition, credit grantors generally prefer at least 3 or 4 years of confirmed residency as this indicates stability. Please review the section of your credit report entitled Electoral Roll . For more information about Electoral Roll data, click here .

It indicates I was on the electoral register at my parents between 2007 and 2010 (which would tie in with me registering at uni for the general election in 2010) but nothing after that. I have checked with the local authority and they say I am registered at my parents address now, I remember getting a polling card for something there too.

Why does my report say this, would it be because I pay council tax and utilities at a different address to my electoral register? What would be the best way to solve this. Does it matter what address my bank details are registered too?

As an aside I have an old flatmate as a financial associate, we had a shared account for rent and bills. The account was closed more than two years ago. I know you can write to the agency's and ask them to remove a person. All the forms ask for details of your addresses though. This confuses me again because I have had so many addresses in the last few years the majority of which I was not on the electoral register at. Do I list all the addresses or just the ones I have been on the electoral register at?

Any help appreciated!

Thanks

Conrad

Whats done is done, your focus now has to be on rationalising everything to one address going forward. That means everything from a Nectar card to a molbile phone, all have to be tied to a single place of residence.

When you come to apply for a mortgage you will need to give 3 years address history and the lenders software will need to match this history to your credit file records.

You must recognise here that software is not like a Human mind, everything is binary, black n white, no grey areas.
It's for this reason that when software picks up a conflict whereby a person has footprints at 2 address's simultaneously, it causes issues.

Furthermore, having had lots of address's is a key 'bad risk' flag. The reason for this is that all statistical studies show a super strong correlation between those with lots of address's and those who get into arrears. The science behind this correalation indicates it's because such people with a propensity to be quite transient, are more likely to be less organised, less stable, more impulsive, more liable to make poor life decisions such as for example choosing a bad landlord / letting agent / not picking up on subbtle clues.

NONE OF THIS MEANS YOU ARE A BAD RISK OR DISORGANISED, but a computer programme cannot know this, all it can do is compare your existing lifestyle history to that of others and draw a conclusion based on this.


So, get organised, don't change address, act like a stable carefull anorak person and in time you will be fine. So, do have a landline at home, do vote, do save, don't change Bank or job, don't flit about with phone contracts. Do everything with care and consideration.

Cheers

kingstreet

... and when you've done that, stop paying for the daft numbers dreamed up by credit reference agencies, as they have no relation to getting a mortgage in real life.

Believe it or not, you can score 999 with Experian with no job and no hope of a mortgage.

A couple of months before you wish to start looking, spend £6 on all three of your paper files from the different CRAs and ensure the information on them is up to date and correct.

Equifax

https://www.econsumer.equifax.co.uk/consumer/uk/gb_consumerletter.ehtml

Experian

https://secure.wiseconsumer.uk.experian.com/wiseconsumer/secure_index.html?data=00

CallCredit

https://www.callcredit.co.uk/stat-report-online/index.php?action=register_display&tpl=regPurchase

leereni

I also have a sporadic address history.

I have been at my current place for 1 1/2 years and before that 1 1/2 years, however prior to this I lived in 4 places in about 4 years.

I'm not planning on looking at buying for at least until another year as I don't know where exactly I will be working (although will be in the same job). But wondered if the above address history will be a problem?

1.8T

Thanks for the replies everyone.

Yeah its a bit annoying they rely so heavily on what a computer says about you rather than going on an individual basis.

Yeah I realise its best to have everything tied to one address, I do its just not the address I live at, should I just get everything changed so that its at my flat I live in just now (even though I only plan to be here for a few more months)?

The address history confuses me, if I go back 3 years I get something like this

Sept 2009 - Jun 2010 - Uni Flat
Jun 2010 - Sept 2010 - Parents
Sept 2010 - Jun 2011 - Uni flat (different one)
Jun 2011 - Feb 2012 - Parents
Feb 2012 - Present - Flat

Would I fill that out in full or ignore the fact I stayed at home during summers? Or just ignore the uni flats altogether? The last uni flat I doubt is even traceable that I lived there (lol) the landlord was a family friend of my flatmate so I just paid rent to him, my name wasn't on the council tax, bills or anything.

Are the £2 reports different to the online ones you get?
Do I just ignore the fact I stayed at home during the summers

kaveish

If anyone has any further information on this subject I would be very interested to hear it. I am in a very similar situation where I have been living in student halls, student houses and now a private let, but have not changed my bank address from my parents home in that time. I have; however, been paying utility bills and moved to the electoral role at each of these addresses.

When applying for credit cards etc, which address should I be giving? I can give my current address, but the bank has my parents' address and I have only been living here for 5 months. Alternatively, I could give my parents address but this seems like lying. Perhaps I should change my bank and anything else using my parents' address over to my new address, would this be better?

martinsurrey

kaveish wrote: »

If anyone has any further information on this subject I would be very interested to hear it. I am in a very similar situation where I have been living in student halls, student houses and now a private let, but have not changed my bank address from my parents home in that time. I have; however, been paying utility bills and moved to the electoral role at each of these addresses.

When applying for credit cards etc, which address should I be giving? I can give my current address, but the bank has my parents' address and I have only been living here for 5 months. Alternatively, I could give my parents address but this seems like lying. Perhaps I should change my bank and anything else using my parents' address over to my new address, would this be better?

Yes, now that you are in a private rent, get everything put at the same address.

On my recent mortgage application I had 5 addresses in 5 years but it wasn’t a problem as I was meticulous in changing everything over and getting on the electoral roll every time I moved.

Be prepared, keep a spreadsheet going, every time you change an address or sign up for something new, add it to the list, then when you move, you just go down the list and change everything at once, if you include subscriptions, work, car, driving licence, ISA, Bank, Credit card, student loan, HMRC etc etc it can easy be over 20 changes, and you would have no hope without planning!

kaveish

Thank you for the very helpful advice.