Credit info on Experian is out of date

jowie

I'm currently looking to get a mortgage, and my advisor did a check for me through Halifax, which turned out to be poor (they wouldn't lend me enough based on my current score). He told me to sign up to Experian to see what they see and try to find out more. So I did, only to find out that there are three bad points against my report, which are all due to a recent balance transfer:

1. The usage of your available credit indicates a higher risk - yes, because the information shows the two credit cards with the full balance, even though the transfer is complete and one of the credit cards is actually zero.
2. The balance of your unsecured lending could indicate a higher risk. - again, same reason as above.
3. You have recently opened 1 or more new credit accounts. - can't be helped, it was to do a balance transfer at 0% for 15 months.

If I'd have known that transferring a balance would've screwed up my credit rating, I wouldn't have done it while I was looking around for a new house! Now I don't know how long I'm going to have to leave it before I can go house hunting again. The website says it is updated every month because that's how often the lenders update, but does it update the lenders as soon as they have new information, or does Experian only update once a month? Will I have to wait until the beginning of next month before I can get a mortgage?

It's very frustrating because I did the balance transfer over a month ago now...

fermi

It means that lenders usually send monthly status/balance updates.

Your actual file is a dynamic snapshot at the point in time it is searched, and that snapshot changes day to day if/when lenders send updates. In other words, as soon as lenders send an update, that should immediately be reflected in the next search you have done.

Cycrow

Credit reports are not updated in real time.

its upto the creditors how often they update them, but its usually once a month, sometimes longer. i've had some accounts that are updated every 3 months

it sounds like you might need to wait a few months

jowie

That's great to know, thanks! :T

I just noticed while logged in that it has generated a report for today as well as yesterday... So I will keep loggin on every day to check!

Fingers crossed it won't take long...

Is this a common issue with balance transfers? I never thought about the issue of having my balance duplicated in two places showing up on my credit report! :shocked:

Cycrow

it happens.
it just depends on when they usually send updates to your file.

The account you transferred to have obviously updated it since the transfer, the account you transferred from have not yet updated it