Default from Southern Water

mistree

Hi All. Hoping for some advice. I applied for a mortgage with my partner yesterday and had a DIP :T but feeling anxious still.

First issue is that my partners credit rating is not great, he has two defaults both 4+ years old. One for an unpaid phone bill (he opened a contract in his brothers name who subsequently didn't pay his bill for 9 months and only told him when the bailiff letters came through!) which was not settled (about £100 wasn't paid). Second default was for a minimal amount on an Argos Credit card which wasn't paid and letters assumed spam. Silly him but not much we can do about it now. Since those issues his credit has been perfect, no late payments or issues. Balances healthy, saved for a deposit etc.

My credit score *was* great. I have a late payment on a phone bill from 2013 and thats it, until yesterday when we were with our broker. He looked at my credit file through a website which id not seen before which looks at all the different agencies. I was previously signed up to equifax and experian with no issues. However when he pulled up my score there was a default sat there from Southern Water that i had never seen before. Thankfully the DIP still went through ok but im now worried that the full application will hit issues.

Ive checked the default and it makes no sense. I moved in to a tiny top floor one bedroom on the 13th of September 2014. January 2015 i have a default for £430 for Southern Water for the account number for that flat. The default is registered for 12 months of varying amounts between £0 and £430 and shows as unsettled. Issues i have with it

My first estimated (unmetered) bill was for £168 for September to March 15, how can i have defaulted by January for an amount 3 times this?
How can they issue a default for charges applied in advance of actually using the service - defaulted in January for water i haven't yet used and more than!
I have a statement advising im in £55 credit in July 2015 but my default continues for 6 months on from this?

I started paying by direct debit in January. I have no idea why there was a delay i dont remember, but i paid every month i was in that flat for a further 3 years and spent most of it in credit yet a year of that is recorded on a default. Its just so wrong i have no idea where the amounts come from as they dont tally with the account, and i never owed £430 its just bizarre. Especially saying its unsettled when i paid in full! I was until yesterday completely unaware so shouldn't i have been informed?

Do i have any chance of having this removed? How should i approach this? Anyone had any success? Im worried that it will hinder the full application when combined with my partners poor score.

Mortgage_Adviser

What did your mortgage broker/bank adviser tell you when you advised him of the situation when doing a DIP?

mistree

He said not to worry too much that we’d cross that bridge when we come to it - it’s not a huge amount and 3 years ago. He said the DIP being approved/rejected would be a good indicator of what was to come. I didn’t know the details though so didn’t say much at the meeting just worried it was legitimate and that I’d completely omissed a bill. After reading about other people who have had defaults which meant rejection at a later stage I want to fix it if possible.

If it helps give context we have a 10 percent deposit and looking to borrow 4.5 or under our joint earnings, so large mortgage. The DIP suggested we could borrow 4.7 but I don’t know how accurate this is.

pink_pirlie

I found a £300 default from British Gas on my credit file unexpected.
I just contacted them and asked them what it was, then got it agreed it wasn't correct. They removed it from my file.
They hadn't been applying the payments I was making to my account.

Just call the water company, with all the data and papers in place showing you paid your bill and see what they say.

mistree

I can see this has been viewed a lot so if it helps anyone I’ll update - called and spoke to someone at southern water who advised they could see the amounts didn’t match, and the fact it was unsettled was not true, but they were fairly adamant i warranted a default for not paying until January. Couldn’t tell me why the direct debit didn’t collect till then and the assumption was that I had instructed that, I have nothing to prove otherwise. I told them I couldn’t remember calls or any timeline that far back, and I had no reason not to pay the minimal amount for water. Pointed out to them I called and set up an account within a couple of days of moving, giving them my personal details, which why would I do if I had no intention of paying my bill?

Lady I spoke to said she needed to email a different department, would call back. She didn’t, subsequently over the next 3 weeks I called three more times and had the same conversation. Got fed up of the promises to escalate and come back to me so emailed their customer complaint email address with all the details and the call history. 4 days later I had an email saying the default had been removed and it showed on my credit file the following week.

Advice is go straight for complaint email as the people on the phone do not have the authority to make the change if necessary.

muhandis

Thank you for the update mistree. I always advice people to ask nicely once and then go for a formal complaint.

Unfortunately, as you found out, front line customer service staff are usually poorly trained and can rarely right any major wrongs.