Credit default advice please

£9over

I recently went on to Experian to check my rating as my husband and I are looking to apply for a mortgage in the new year. Unfortunately a joint account we opened is showing as defaulted because we were over our limit by £9. We have separate accounts but opened this for the future. When we moved house we changed our address my husband taking care of Lloyds as his account is there along with our joint account. After visiting the bank recently my husband discovered they had not changed the address for our joint account and that it has been over by £9 for 5 months. As far as we were aware the account was fine and did not pick up on the missing statements as we do not use it. The account has now been settled and the address updated but it has completely ruined our previously good ratings.

Does anyone have any idea how long it will take to improve and if this is likely to affect us getting a mortgage?

Any information or advice on this matter would be greatly appreciated!

Experian_company_representative

Defaults usually stay on your credit report for six years and are likely to have a major impact on any credit rating calculated for either of you. If you can't get the default removed then your only other realistic option is to add a note to your credit reports explaining what happened. But from what you say it sounds like you might be able to argue with the bank that the default only occurred because they didn't update their records correctly, assuming they were properly informed of the address change and you receive paper statements. If the account is managed online you probably have less of a case.

James

£9over

Thanks for your response. We have already tried arguing with the bank over this issue but they will not remove it. Will the fact that it was only £9 over make any difference to how we are assessed? Our combined incomes are £90,000 and our other accounts are fine.

Thrugelmir

£9 over what?

matttye

£9over wrote: »

Thanks for your response. We have already tried arguing with the bank over this issue but they will not remove it. Will the fact that it was only £9 over make any difference to how we are assessed? Our combined incomes are £90,000 and our other accounts are fine.

I would think Lloyds would need to speak to both of you to update an address on your joint account, but this should have been explained at least.

I'd go back to the bank again and argue some more.

Thrugelmir wrote: »

£9 over what?

£9 over overdraft limit - stated in the OP.

Thrugelmir

matttye wrote: »

£9 over overdraft limit - stated in the OP.

So what's the overdraft limit?

Presumably has grown with interest and charges.

As far as we were aware the account was fine

If the account was in overdraft. Then unlikely to be "fine".

Hence why I was seeking clarification.

£9over

We did not have an overdraft on this account. We went over the limit once by a few pounds and immediately paid it back to bring it in line. I asked the member of staff at the if I needed to pay in extra to cover any charges that may be incurred because of this and she said no that there was no charge due. In this knowledge I left it believing it to be settled however it turns out that we were charged and this is how it went over.

Thanks for the advice and we will keep writing to them.

matttye

£9over wrote: »

We did not have an overdraft on this account. We went over the limit once by a few pounds and immediately paid it back to bring it in line. I asked the member of staff at the if I needed to pay in extra to cover any charges that may be incurred because of this and she said no that there was no charge due. In this knowledge I left it believing it to be settled however it turns out that we were charged and this is how it went over.

Thanks for the advice and we will keep writing to them.

With the advice of people on here and CAG (Consumer Action Group), I wrote to Halifax regarding a very similar issue back in March. Halifax had been reporting late payments on my account for 18 months because of an overdraft charge that had been applied to my account.

I went into branch in March 2009 and paid what I owed + the interest due to accrue that month, and was assured by branch staff no further interest/charges were due and my account would retain a zero balance. There was subsequently a £1.xx charge that I obviously had no idea about. I didn't think to check subsequent bank statements because I was assured the balance would be zero.

I had a bank statement which showed that I paid in exactly what I owed on the overdraft + the exact amount of interest due that month. This was obviously strong evidence in support of my argument.

I wrote to Halifax with the following (this is the part I had help with - how to word the letter):

"I paid £49.81 back in July 2009 as I was told this would clear the balance due plus all accrued interest to date. I was assured that no further interest would accrue and the matter would be settled.

I had no idea any further balance remained unpaid as I trusted what I was told by your staff at the time and acted on that information in good faith.

Please therefore remove the adverse credit markers relating to the amount of £1.26 which I had no idea remained unpaid."

Halifax removed all markers and gave me £50 compensation.

It seems righteous indignation is key. If you're sure you were told that no charges would accrue - you need to give the bank a telling off for providing false information.

£9over

Thank you this is really helpful. Could I ask who it was you contacted? Any particular department or person?

matttye

£9over wrote: »

Thank you this is really helpful. Could I ask who it was you contacted? Any particular department or person?

I wrote to:

Credit Reference Amendments Team
(head office address here)