Friend Registering Bank Account to my Address - Will it Affect me?

Jaith

A friend of mine has recently moved abroad and asked if they can register their account at my address, as they are concerned about it being closed down if they ignore correspondence.

I have phoned the bank (HSBC) who told me it's absolutely fine to do this; they didn't differentiate between postal address and registered address.

Clearly if the person claimed they were living at this address it would be misleading/fraudulent, but as far as I know that's not a requirement for the bank account to be registered here, so it's all legit.

I just want to be 100% certain that it won't affect me credit rating in the future. I appreciate that credit reports are associated with an individual not an address, but I'd like to be certain that the credit agencies won't automatically associate the account or the individual with me, since I'm looking to apply for a new mortgage shortly.

Has anybody had experience with this?

trailingspouse

We never had any difficulty getting our bank to write to us at our address abroad. Is there any reason why your friends can't just do this?

Uxb

I'd be VERY wary of doing this.
All sorts of things might follow on - not just about creating a financial association

Here is one unexpected possibility
If you claim 25% council tax reduction for single person living in the house.
The council will check with the CRA's as part of its general fraud prevention and find another person's bank account with an address registered as yours.
The council will then most likely suspend your 25% reduction in council tax as they will conclude that more than one person is in the house.

CLAPTON

there is absolutely nothing illegal or irregular about having some-one use your address for correspondence

meer53

I wouldn't do it. None of my friends would ask me to either. Why doesn't your friend ask their bank to use their foreign address ?

Gromitt

Uxb wrote: »

The council will then most likely suspend your 25% reduction in council tax as they will conclude that more than one person is in the house.

I've seen that happen, but it went further than that - they also wanted back pay for the previous years unless they had proof that there was only a single residency during those years. Needless to say, took a while to clean up the mess.

stclair

Loads of people have a correspondence address set up on their accounts so it shouldn't really be a problem.

heloid

I've lived in share flats for the last 6 years in the UK, with students, people with completely destroyed credit histories, people in massive debt and it's never affected me one bit. There is no association by having the same address. What if you moved in the old apartment of a convicted fraudster? You can't be liable or impacted by what they have done.

Jaith

Thanks for the replies. I'm not concerned in the slightest that it's wrong in technically as HSBC confirmed it's fine, but I was worried about the indirect effects and with a couple of people here having mentioned problems with council tax it seems there could potentially be issues, so I'm inclined to avoid it.

Not certain about them registering overseas to be honest - I had assumed they were unable but will ask them to try and pursue this option.

innovate

Millions of Brits moved abroad temporarily or permanently and even if not all of them have kept their UK accounts, hundreds of thousands have done so. All major banks and building societies can handle non-UK addresses on existing accounts, though some may have some countries blacklisted.

You aren't saying which country your friend has moved to, so it's not easy to comment conclusively. Also, what is the reason your friend did not tell their bank about their address change before they left the country? It wasn't a bit of a hasty departure, was it? Looking at all possibilities, your credit rating could be the least of your worries.

RetiredInThailand

innovate wrote: »

Millions of Brits moved abroad temporarily or permanently and even if not all of them have kept their UK accounts, hundreds of thousands have done so. All major banks and building societies can handle non-UK addresses on existing accounts, though some may have some countries blacklisted.

True enough and I have been one of them for nearly 4 decades. And for most of that time I have used a UK correspondence address. Why? Because on occasions I have been moving around a lot, or have been unsure what my exact address abroad would be in a few months time. It's very tedious (not to mention well nigh impossible) to change address details often these days as the UK banks all want lots of documentary proof due to the money-laundering regs, and that can be hard and/or expensive to obtain if you live overseas.

Another good reason for using a UK correspondence address is if your bank introduces a charge for sending statements out to foreign addresses. My bank did this for credit cards about 10 years ago and the bank themselves suggested that I use a UK correspondence address for card statements to avoid the charge. So I did.

A third good reason could be that the postal deliveries to the country of residence are unreliable or very slow.

In all this time no one has ever assumed that because I use a correspondence address my financial affairs are in any way related to the person whose address I use, nor have they ever had any issues with council tax or anything else relating to me. I think people worry too much these days.