Need help! Dad has same name! UK credit profile in tatters! :-(

cramb0

Hi Guys

Please forgive the rather alarmist title!

I have been living and working overseas (Hong Kong and Australia) since 2007 and am thinking about buying property back in UK.

Before I started applying for mortgages I though it would be prudent to do the experian check to see if I had any nasties in the closet. I was alarmed when all my questions they asked me were referring to things that I know my Dad and maybe even more recently my Mum were doing from a financial point of view.

What complicates matters is my Dad has same first and obviously last name as me so I have a horrible feeling all of our financial transactions and / or credit history would have been bundled together.

I am not sure if this is because of the same name or because I have been using the same address as my Mum's house.

How would I go about dissecting our financial transactions over the years and hence start trying to build up my credit profile in the UK.

If it helps my Dad no longer lives at the 'family home' address which I think I still use for any UK correspondences but obviously he did for many years (this is where the confusion probably arrises).

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Cheers

Tixy

Hi

This sort of thing does happen and can be a pain to sort.

If you haven't already get copies of your credit report from each of the 3 agencies (if you struggle to get them online due to this mixed up data then it may be easier to order the £2 statutory reports by post).

Each individual credit account appearing on your report should show a date of birth and so it should be fairly easy to highlight which belong to you and which to him.

I would then contact the credit reference agencies to ask them to look in to and correct your files, and to remove any reference to him as an alias to you or any links to his current address.
They should be able to help, or may in some cases refer you to contact individual lenders.

If mother (or anyone else) incorrectly appears as a financial associate of yours on your file then you would also need to file a notice of disassociation with the 3 credit reference agencies.

DCFC79

I would have thought the date of birth would be used to differentiate between you and your father on application forms.

DigForVictory

+1 for date of birth reminder & possibly arranging your post to go to another relative? As name and address match will feel "enough" - if you can move addresses, it'll help.

cramb0

Thanks for the advice. I like the old school pen and paper method - will get right to it.

Cheers

Hazzinho

If you've been away since 2007 you probably have very little if any credit history as it'll have all dropped off, this is probably why your dads credit comes back as you will have nothing. You may need to build up your credit with credit builder credit cards.

ValHaller

Hazzinho wrote: »

If you've been away since 2007 you probably have very little if any credit history as it'll have all dropped off, this is probably why your dads credit comes back as you will have nothing. You may need to build up your credit with credit builder credit cards.

I would say sort out the confusion over Dad's credit record first. I don't buy the idea that Dad's record comes back as OP has no record - they cannot share the same date of birth. This is a case of wrong data and it is not a foregone conclusion that credit builders will be required.

cramb0

One thing I am slightly confused about is whether I "need" to keep some sort of uk address in order to maintain a healthy uk credit score?

If I don't need a uk address to maintain uk credit history I will just move everything to my hk address and that would help solve confusion also.

Hazzinho

You need open accounts as they drop off after 6 years so it's like you've never had credit, all that will show is electoral roll history.