Yorkshire Water dd plan has destroyed credit rating

lg1978

My partner and I have been working hard at paying off debt to get his credit rating up so we can get a mortgage before our second child is born. All was going well, we had paid off around 7k in the last six months, cleared all outstanding debt and his rating had shot up to excellent.

Then at the beginning of Nov, we got an unexpected water bill for £600. Part of the reason it was unexpected was because over the past year ourwater bills had suggested that we were in credit. Prior to this, around the time I was expecting our first child, we were going through a rough time financially, and we had run up a large bill and had reached the stage where court papers were issued by YW. We managed to raise the money to pay this off before a CCJ was issued forunately and our account was clear. Then, as mentioned, for about a year afterwards our bills seemed to suggest we were in credit. To be honest, this seemed fairly plausible as we do seem to be paying a lot for water, and we never got round to questioning it.

Then in November, we got this huge bill so I phoned up to see what was going on. I was told that this was correct and the situation with the other bills was a known problem after accounts had defaulted badly and then been paid off. The girl on the other end of the phone agreed that it was misleading and it was something they were trying to resolve. She then suggested that we could set up a payment plan for the outstanding balance and the bills going forward to all be rolled into one and go out by direct debit. This sounded really reasonable so we paid £200 there and then towards the outstanding balance, and an £80 direct debit which could be adjusted subject to meter readings.

Fast forward to today, and my partner has done a routine check of his credit file and found that Yorkshire Water have been entered as a new account and they have filed a year's worth of missed payments. Needless to say this has had a very detrimental effect on his credit rating, dragging it down from excellent to fair and ruining our chances of a mortgage any time soon.

Is there anything we can do to resolve this? What would happen if we paid off the balance and cancelled the payment plan, going back to quarterly bills. It just seems that we've worked so hard to pay off so much debt and get in a position to buy a decent house and now because of this we are right back to square one.

Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated!