Rebuilding Credit Post Bankruptcy

mwarby

Have you tried head office eg

Lloyd’s banking group, The Mound, Edinburgh EH1 1YZ

they should forward it to the correct department 

Adamanta

I am discharged exactly a year in few days  
I was approved for Vanquis on the day of discharge (limit 1250). Few months later out of curiosity tried, and got approved for Capital one (1250), followed by Ocean (1250). Vanquis since then has increased the limit too (to 1750) so available limit is 4250. Little bit used, cleared off every month. 
Also, I had an car incident, which resulted in my reliable, but old car being written off... Without any problem, but huge surprise for me, I have been accepted for car loan. Picking up my new car tomorrow 3 years agreement, but will clear it before end of this year
Next step is mortgage in few years. 

Fighter1986

This is excellent news Adamanta, glad to hear it.

Out of interest, would you mind sharing with us how many defaults and how many CCJs (if any) appeared on your credit file when you were accepted for these cards?

Fighter1986

Development:

It transpires I have some CIFAS markers against me from several years ago.

One is someone I never applied to and one is from a motor finance company where the dealer input my data, not me. 

Ugh. Right, better putmput letter writing to action again then 😑

Adamanta

I have still two CCJ shown before bankruptcy (both over 5K). Defaults all marked as satisfied, I did the clean up. 

SkintSquaddie

Adamanta said:

I have still two CCJ shown before bankruptcy (both over 5K). Defaults all marked as satisfied, I did the clean up. 

How did you do this I've still abit to go before discharge but it would be good to have the info of how you did it I too have 2ccjs. Who when it's time is it you apply to for ccjs to be marked as satisfied

Fighter1986

There's no guarantee that you'll be able to get the CCJs marked as Satisfied, the lenders aren't definitely under a legal obligation to do so, it's a bit of a grey area, but I took the stance they should.

This was the letter I wrote to Moriarty Law, who later came back with a letter essentially stating "We disagree we should mark the CCJs as satisfied but we will as a gesture of goodwill"...

To Whom It May Concern:

 

After consultation with both the Information Commissioner and the Credit Reference Agencies, I am writing directly to you to request that you formally update the court records relating to my account with you in accordance with the Data Protection Act.

 

I was declared bankrupt on xxth Xxxx 2019 and subsequently discharged on xxth Xxxx 2020, and Moriarty law was included within the Bankruptcy. For your convenience I have attached both my Bankruptcy Order and Discharge Notification.

 

Currently the information that you have recorded against my name with the Court, and therefore Credit Reference Agencies is factually incorrect, and despite written requests to your customer services, as yet your company has failed to correct the entries as required.

 

• It is required that you mark the account and court records in some way as to indicate that it is settled or satisfied, in accordance with the Data Protection Act.

 

The Information Commissioner has indicated that I should allow you 28 calendar days from the date you receive this letter to comply, during this time you are requested either to update the Court Files correctly (with a judgement satisfied date of 15th April 2020) or notify me in writing the reasons that you refuse to.

 

After the 28 days have elapsed the Information Commissioner has requested that I inform them if your company fails to update the records so that they may take any necessary enforcement action against your company.

 

Please note that if this account falls within the remit of the FOS, I will also be submitting a separate complaint to them regarding this matter if the Court and by-proxy, Credit Reference Files are not correctly updated.

 

I have copied the relevant information provided by the Information Commissioner as an attachment to this request.

 

Yours faithfully

 

 

 

Fighter1986

 

Enc:

 

Bankruptcy Order

Discharge Notification

 

 

 

 

 

Relevant Extracts from Bankruptcy - A Guide for the Public – 2010-2015 inc issued by the ICO

 

Bankruptcy

 

When someone applies for credit, lenders look at information about their financial standing held by credit reference agencies. When someone becomes bankrupt, the bankruptcy is recorded on their credit reference file along with other information.

 

What happens to defaulted accounts on my credit reference file?

 

After you have been discharged from your bankruptcy you can send proof of your discharge to all the lenders whose debts were included in your bankruptcy. Those lenders should then mark the entry on your credit reference file to show that you no longer owe money on that account (perhaps by marking the entry as ‘partially satisfied’ or ‘partially settled’ or in some other way).

 

Once the lender has changed the information on the entry, if you make any new credit applications the prospective lender will be able to see that you do not owe any more money on that account. You can ask the credit reference agency to add a statement called a 'notice of correction' to the default entry. In your statement, you can explain that the entry was included in your bankruptcy which is now discharged.

 

If the lender refuses to change the date of the default or mark it as ‘satisfied’ or ‘settled’ or to indicate in another way that you have fulfilled your obligations to that lender then you can write to us at: Information Commissioner, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF.

PlatinumHorse

Fighter1986 said:

mwarby said:

Fighter1986 said:

Update:

Aqua changed their mind and emailed me to say "Actually, nah"
Tesco changed their mind and also emailed me to say "Actually, nah".

*Shrug* I guess I'll keep my little teal Tandem card with it's £150 limit and use it for one tank of fuel a month, see where we stand a year from now.

Aqua have always been a bit picky for me, they are also quite quick to drop limits unless you sustain usage. I’d guess that most providers will want to see a good few months of positive use history in new card before they issue you one. Three cards early on after discharge could look like your desperate for credit 

Yeah absolutely, I'll leave things just as they are now for a year and re-assess the situation next Summer.

Gives me time to settle a couple of fights I have on my hands too, like NPower who have written to me claiming it's their "business policy" to not mark defaulted accounts as settled following a bankruptcy as the balance was never paid, despite this being in direct contravention with what the ICO guidelines state, so I'll have to escalate matters to the ICO on that front.

I'm still going to do whatever's required to have Moriarty Law update their CCJ against me as satisfied, too. The ICO guidelines have changed somewhat since the sticky was created with post-BR credit file clean up letter templates. The guidance notes are now a little more fuzzy and open to interpretation -

"Once you have been discharged you will have to notify each of the lenders whose accounts were included in this bankruptcy as they will not automatically be told. You should send them the evidence of this and ask them to amend their entry on your credit file to reflect this. The specifics of how it will look vary depending on the CRA but the entries should be marked in such a way that any lender searching your credit file can clearly see that this debt is no longer outstanding and you are not being pursued for it. Most accounts that have been discharged from bankruptcy will show as settled/satisfied or partially settled/satisfied with a zero balance outstanding."

I'm going to push the stance that this means the CCJ must be updated to show a satisfaction date of the discharge date of my bankruptcy. It seems the only logical conclusion to me and if Moriarty Law don't update the court within 28 days I'll escalate the matter to ICO along with NPower. 

Imma go full Scrappy Doo on this  

Can I check something, as I am confused with the bankruptcy and what should and should not be on your report or still showing. Once Discharged should accounts be shown as settled or satisfied and also closed? As looking through Transunion and clearscore it appears that is not the case with some....and I am just trying to figure out what should and not should be still on my report some 4 years after being discharged. 

Fighter1986

Please read the thread on the Bankruptcy Forum titled "Credit File Clean up post bankruptcy".

All accounts included in your bankruptcy should show a default date no later than the date on which you were declared bankrupt and a settled date of no later than the date on which you were discharged.

Lenders don't do this automatically - you'll need to write to them enclosing proof of bankruptcy and proof of discharge - the insolvency service can often send you PDF copies of these.

This can take upto 8 weeks to show on your credit file.

There's a grey area over whether CCJs should show as settled after a bankruptcy; under the Data Protection Act there was no obligation for a CCJ integrated into a bankruptcy order however the ICO guidelines have broadened since GDPR and while there's nothing in black and white to state categorically CCJs should be updated to show settled once a bankruptcy order has been discharged, the lenders who obtained CCJs against me prior to my bankruptcy have agreed to mark them as satisfied. 

mwarby

Fighter1986 said:

Lenders don't do this automatically - you'll need to write to them enclosing proof of bankruptcy and proof of discharge - the insolvency service can often send you PDF copies of these.

It will vary from lender to lender, generally I'd say if they haven't done it in 3-6 months post discharge you'd need to contact them. The biggest impact on default dates is when your heading the 6 year point as having 1 or 2 defaults still showing when everything else has dropped off has a big impact