struggling to get access to credit reports because i live in a new build!

staceyd1991

hello all im new here

after searching the internet for advice i came across this forum and ive found it very helpful so far but i cant find any advise on what i should do about my situation.

ive just moved back to the UK after living abroad for 15 years (left when i was 13)

my husbands parents sadly passed away a few months ago and left him with £150k (they lived in the UK), with this he bought us a new build home which we are both very thank ful for.

the house was completed and we moved in in December 2019.

With us both moving back to the UK to start a family neither of us have a credit history over here.

We have each managed to open natwest current accounts, we each have a sim only with EE and gas and electric is in his name and water/BT broadband is in mine.

so we each do have credit accounts which have been open since December 2019.

we are both also on the electoral roll

Royal mail has registered our address as ive double checked.

Dispite all this both me and my husband cant access our credit reports on anything, we have tried experian, equifax, credit karma, clear score and the credit club and all fail on address verification or our address isnt listed and when we manually enter the address it wont reconize it!

In 3-5 years we will be looking at selling the home we just bought to use as a good deposit on a bigger home as our family grows which we would need a mortgage for so i want to keep a close eye on our reports

i dont know what to do about this?

any advise?

Thrugelmir

Allow time for the data to filter through. A few weeks is nothing to be concerned about. 

PRAISETHESUN

I had a similar thing happen when I first moved to the UK - you need a bit of time for things to filter through the system, but it shouldn't take more than a few months. 

What you should try and do in the meantime is to request copies of your statutory reports directly from the 3 CRAs (Experian, Equifax and TransUnion). Don't go through third party services such as MSE credit club. If/when they can't provide your data they should ask for copies of ID to verify your identity - you might need to push them if they don't. After that, you should then get access to your files and you can check your info.

Moving forward and preparing for a mortgage down the line, you just need to show you can manage credit responsibly. Not every credit provider reports to all CRAs, and in my experience not every utility company will report to your credit files either so you'll still need to do a bit of work. There's no need to pay for credit (re)building services, simply get a credit card (one in each of your names, since there is no such thing as a "joint" CC) you can make purchases on and pay it off in full every month. Over time this'll demonstrate what lenders are looking for.

D_M_E

In your case, because you moved abroad at age 13  I suspect that your credit file only took off when you returned last year, so whatever is on it will be very little.
Give it a few months and stuff should start appearing.

Don't know about your husband - was he out of the country for some years? If so then that could be why his files cannot be found.

staceyd1991

thank you for your replies, i should of said my husband who i met in spain was originally from the UK but he left about 8/9 years ago? hes 36, he said he closed everything when he moved to spain as he didnt plan to return to the UK, after posting this i managed to get onto checkmyfile.co.uk i think its called? just showing our bank accounts and sim onlys but its a start

PRAISETHESUN

staceyd1991 said:

thank you for your replies, i should of said my husband who i met in spain was originally from the UK but he left about 8/9 years ago? hes 36, he said he closed everything when he moved to spain as he didnt plan to return to the UK, after posting this i managed to get onto checkmyfile.co.uk i think its called? just showing our bank accounts and sim onlys but its a start

Credit files only show the last 6 years of history, so your husband will be starting "fresh" just like you if he closed everything before he left 8-9 years ago. Only other thing I'll add is that you don't need to pay for access to your credit reports. You can request your statutory info for free directly from the CRAs, or use services MSE Credit Club (Experian), Clearscore (Equifax) and Credit Karma (TransUnion).