Letting Agent Tennancy Credit Check

thomasleese

I've never missed a payment, have no CCJs or convictions or anything like that, however my Experian credit score is listed as poor, 3 points away from fair. In May, my credit score was good and as far as I can tell the only things which have made it go down are that I switched energy supply at my current home and mobile phone provider which pulls down the average age of my accounts, and I reached the limit of my credit card for an emergency spend last month, but now it's down to 50% and I'll probably get it back down to 0% by the end of the year. Personally, I don't understand how my score go from good to poor from one month to the other like that, but I've checked all the details and there is nothing actually wrong with the information they have on me.


I'm moving to London in a few weeks for a new job and I'm starting to look at houses to rent. I'm worried that when the letting agent does a credit check, they'll see my score as poor and refuse to rent the house to me, even though I know I will be able to afford the rent. Is this a valid concern? I've seen some people say that letting agent credit checks can only contain public data, but I can't find any real evidence this is true, and when I see my Experian credit score shown as poor I get really worried.

Pixie5740

Nobody but you can see your Experian credit score. No one uses the Experian credit score for anything, it's just a marketing tool to encourage suckers to pay for more services from Experian so it's really not worth getting your knickers in a twist about.

This question comes up frequently on the forum, in fact I'm sure it has already been asked multiple times already this week and it's on Wednesday. Landlords and letting agents don't offer credit like a banks or building societies do so all they can search is the public records.

Here's the sample for Experian's "Tenant Comprehensive Report" Does it contain anything other than CCJ and bankruptcy information? No. Does it use you Experian credit score? No.

The landlord won't use the credit check alone to determine whether or not to rent to you, (s)he can also use references from previous landlords, employer references, affordability, checking you out on social media, etc.

thomasleese

Thanks for the quick reply. This is what I suspected, it's comforting to have my suspicions confirmed by someone else!