Home ownership status on application form

MetaxaUK

I have recently been refused credit by Apple who use PayPal for their credit plans. It was only for a £750 purchase and I’ve never had credit refused elsewhere. According to Noddle, I have a 5/5 credit rating and I know I have never missed a CC or loan payment for at least 10 years.
The only thing I can think of that may have caused the decision is my home ownership status. I moved in with my partner 5 years ago following a period of renting after a divorce. The home and mortgage is in my partner’s name but, for all intents and purposes, we live as a couple, our finances are jointly managed and we will be marrying next year. I never know how to declare my home ownership status on loan applications etc. as, technically, I’m not a home owner but, equally, I’m not a private tenant. On the application in question I stated ‘home owner’ and am therefore wondering whether this has brought up a red flag somewhere on the credit checking process.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

[Deleted User]

Check the information on all your files. Ignore the scores, as they mean nothing.

Check also for financial associates, to see if anyone else has negative history.

MetaxaUK

Thank you for your quick response.

I have a reasonable understanding of my credit report and know that the rating is only a small part of a bigger picture. However, I usually check my whole report thoroughly each month. All my accounts are showing as up-to-date with no missed or late payments; I'm only using a small percentage of my available credit - I pay my only CC in full each month and have never used my overdraft facility; my electoral register history is complete; I have no financial associations and I have not made any other credit applications for several months prior to this, so it's not showing excessive searches.

That's why I'm thinking it must be something out of the ordinary that has been flagged that isn't immediately evident from my credit report, e.g. home ownership status?

Voyager2002

MetaxaUK wrote: »

That's why I'm thinking it must be something out of the ordinary that has been flagged that isn't immediately evident from my credit report, e.g. home ownership status?

Or it could be the relative alignment of the moon and planets, or a glitch in their software... Unless there is information on-file demonstrating that you are NOT a home-owner this is unlikely to have been the reason.

MetaxaUK

Thank you - funnily enough, having read some other threads on the forum and been made aware of 'Clearscore', I've just signed up to them so that I can compare my report with Noddle's. During the sign-up process, it asked whether I was a home owner or tenant and I put home owner. It didn't flinch or shout out "LIAR" and it opened the account, so I'm fairly reassured that this wasn't the reason.

Thanks for your help. I guess I'll go with computer glitch rather than planet alignment, as that just sounds a bit weird

Candyapple

MetaxaUK wrote: »

I have recently been refused credit by Apple who use PayPal for their credit plans. It was only for a £750 purchase and I’ve never had credit refused elsewhere.

I thought Apple used Barclays for their finance deals - have they changed this?

Apple Financial Services
Consumer loan financing through Barclays on Apple Online Store purchases of £399 or more.

Barclays Partner Finance is a trading name of Clydesdale Financial Services Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of Barclays Bank PLC. Authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority. Registered in England. Registered No: 2901725. Registered Office: 1 Churchill Place, London E14 5HP. Terms and conditions apply. Subject to status and application.

http://www.apple.com/uk/financing/consumer.html

MetaxaUK

Sorry, I can't post a link as I'm a new user - but this is the Ts&Cs from the checkout / finance page:

Terms & Conditions
Subject to credit approval. Finance provided by PayPal Credit. Apple Distribution International acts as a broker and offers finance from a restricted range of finance providers. PayPal Credit is a trading name of PayPal (Europe) S.à r.l. et Cie, S.C.A., 22-24 Boulevard Royal L-2449, Luxembourg.

It was a refurbished Macbook, maybe they have different arrangements for new and refurbished products.

Voyager2002

MetaxaUK wrote: »

Sorry, I can't post a link as I'm a new user - but this is the Ts&Cs from the checkout / finance page:



It was a refurbished Macbook, maybe they have different arrangements for new and refurbished products.

Maybe they keep their refurbished products for tenants: home-owners should have sufficient credit-worthiness to buy new!

Candyapple

Going back to the initial query, I would only put down homeowner if my name was on the deeds of the property / I was paying for it and it was showing as such on my credit files.

In your instance I understand why you have done it previously, but you should have put private tenant. Don't forget that every lender has their individual scoring criteria and you putting down 'homeowner' might score you higher with their internal lending score due to it showing more stability, however when the computer checks your credit files and sees no entry for the mortgage on your files, at best it may go against you and you get declined, at worst, will land you on CIFAS / National Hunter databases for application fraud and god help you if you do end up on either.

You also make no mention of whether or not you are on the electoral roll, what your annual salary is, how much debts do you have in form of loans/cards/overdrafts etc, what is your cumulative credit limit?

You mention you have joint finances with your partner, does she have any adverse credit? Or perhaps your ex-wife is still linked to you? This would affect you as you'd be financially linked.

Have you obtained copies of your credit file from Experian and Equifax also to check if everything is correct? Noddle (aka CallCredit) is an ok indicator but generally doesn't hold nearly as much info as the other two agencies.

Finally, why would you want to pay interest on Apple's finance 'deal' when you could have just as easily have applied for a 0% purchases card with an even longer purchase period like Virgin's 24 months? At 14.9% on £750 over 18 months would be you paying back a total of £835.64 with Apple finance. Especially if your finances are in ship shape condition and you've never been turned down for credit, surely you would be more savvy than that.

20aday

In terms of Apple Finance they use PayPal Credit and Barclays Partner Finance.

Depending on the purchase price (£99 or above for PayPal, £399 for Barclays) the appropriate option is presented during the checkout process.

mrsammyp

Probably unrelated but PayPal have had issues with their systems over the last couple of days, transactions not appearing etc.