Electoral Register Issues - Address not matching

chrisgilboy

Hello all, 
I moved to a new address in January this year. My various credit rating agencies were all saying the same thing, 'your not on the electoral register'. 

This was slightly baffling as registering myself on the electoral register was one of the first things I did when I moved into the property. At first I thought that there must be a delay in the information being passed over to the credit agencies, but after 1 month, 2 months, 3, 4...  still no sign on my credit reports. 

Now I think I understand what the problem is and could do with some advice on how to resolve it. 

I live in a flat that is the ground floor of a converted Victorian terrace. Whenever I look for my address online in the 'auto find address' it seems that depending on which system the bank/insurance/internet/credit card company uses it will throw out a slightly different address. 

• Flat A, 68...
• 68A...
• Ground Floor Flat...

And this seems to be the issue. 

All of my council correspondence, including Electoral Register are set to the 'Ground Floor Flat'. This is the councils 'official' address. 
All of my banks/credit card ect... only had options on their systems for Flat A or 68A. 

And here lies the issue, they don't match, and therefore do not link on my credit files and in turn it thinks that I am not on the electoral register. 

Can anyone advise on the easiest way to have this corrected? 

Many thanks, 

Chris
 

phillw

chrisgilboy said:

Can anyone advise on the easiest way to have this corrected? 
 

Easiest might be to move.
But you could contact each of the credit agencies and explain the issue and see what they say, you may have to contact your council too. If you can't the planets to align then you might be able to get a notice of correction added.

PRAISETHESUN

Dispute this with the 3 CRAs - provide them with proof that you are registered on the ER and ask them to amend their records. I'd also get in touch with your council and ask them to pass along your ER registration to the CRAs as well. When I moved house and updated my address on the ER I got a confirmation letter from my local council. I scanned that and provided it to the CRAs and it was sorted relatively quickly.

MaryNB

I had a similar problem. Royal Mail and the Council use different versions of my address. Experian had me down on the electoral register, the other two CRAs didn't.

I sent a copy of the letter from the council confirming I'm on the register to Transunion. They sorted it pretty quickly.

Sent it to Equifax and it took 3 months to sort. They left an NOC on my file. There was no dispute, they accepted the council letter so they shouldn't have put an NOC on it. When I told them to remove the NOC they removed my electoral roll status as well... I rang them several times to get it sorted. They eventually put the council version of my address as a linked address on my account and now it shows I'm on the electoral roll and the NOC is gone.
Equifax seem to default to putting NOCs on file. Don't let them do it. I was about to get a mortgage and two lenders said this could be problematic. 

chrisgilboy

Thank you everyone for the advice you have given. 
I shall send the confirmation letter from my council to the various CRAs. 
Mary, thanks for the heads up regarding Equifax! 

PRAISETHESUN

I can also vouch for Equifax placing a NOC by default... it took longer to get that removed than it took to get the actual issue I complained about sorted!

MaryNB

PRAISETHESUN said:

I can also vouch for Equifax placing a NOC by default... it took longer to get that removed than it took to get the actual issue I complained about sorted!

They're a nightmare. The whole process of getting anything sorted with them is significantly worse than Transunion or Experian.
They said the NOC wouldn't be an issue. Both Halifax and Natwest said it would. 
When I rang up to get my electoral roll status back up (after they removed it when I told them to remove NOC) I said "Do NOT add a notice of correction!" - "You want use to add an notice of correction?" 🤦
This was like 2 days before I was due to have my mortgage appointment. So stressed.

NoMonkey

I recently went through this with TransUnion. This issue must effect 10,000s of properties in Scottish cities with dual address formats, with people's credit ratings not reflecting accurately that they're on the electoral register. For my case, yearly I had to provide confirmation that 70/8 and 70 (2F4) are the same address. Eventually I just decided to leave a NOC on my report saying TransUnion systems are honking and don`t use the universal Unique Property Reference Number (UPRN) that aligns all the differing ways an address is held in different address data systems. Miraculously that asked to not put the note in yet, then two weeks later agreed I was on the electoral register. I do sometimes wonder if this needs to be raised as from an IT point of view,  surely it's incorrectly processing a person's data to provide incorrect life effecting judgements which conflicts with GDPR legislation.