Financial Associations

mpsos13

Please can someone advise. I house share with another person. We are not linked in anyway either emotionally or financially however we recently changed gas/electric supplier on the property we rent to British Gas from SSE. We put the bill in both names as we previously did. We don’t pay by d/d but we split the bill 50/50 on receipt each month with one or the other making a debit card payment whilst other person reimburses who ever made card payment in cash. However I have now noticed that on my credit file I am now financially linked to this other person? Can I get this link removed as we are not together and it’s because of gas/electric on house NOT credit. TIA

[Deleted User]

Not if you're both named on the agreement, no.

PRAISETHESUN

It doesn't matter how you pay the bill, the fact that you are both named on the bill and hence jointly liable for paying it, means that there is a financial connection between you. Utilities are technically a form of credit, since you pay for your service after you have used it. The only way to unlink yourselves would be to put the bill into a sole name.

kuratowski

Another option would be to use an energy provider who doesn't report to CRA.

[Deleted User]

kuratowski wrote: »

Another option would be to use an energy provider who doesn't report to CRA.

Yes, and EDF is the answer here.


Some points to note about financial associations:


It's one of the areas of CRA practice that is largely unregulated. It used to be the case that associations were only created when finance products involving credit were taken out in a joint name. Over time, and with the connivance of the CRAs, their customers have extended the scope of what constitutes an association to include secondary card holders on credit card accounts, and utility accounts, even in some cases where the account is in a single name (e.g. if you disclose the name of other occupants of a house to the water company).


Once created by the CRAs, they continue to report the association even if it no longer exists. That is, they lie to financial institutions about non-existent associations.


An association can only be removed by you. Although you have no relationship with the CRAs, and have never authorised them to handle data about you, the onus is on you to request that they remove the association, and often they demand some sort of proof that no association exists. In other words, their policy is, "if in doubt, there is an association".


All in all, the way financial associations are handled by these, in effect, unregulated bodies, leaves a very great deal to be desired.


OP - where to go from here: contact each of the four CRAs and request, no, demand, that they remove the association. Change energy supplier to EDF and have the bill in a single name (EDF don't report to the CRAs, but who knows what they might do in the future).