Financial Dissociation from Ex Partner

the-mrs

Hello, anyone who has previously dissociated from an ex partner on their credit report...Can you advise whether I need to notify all CRA separately? I have only been able to find the form for Experian up to now.
Thanks!

MEM62

Yes, you will need to contact each CRA separately.  

FarmGirl78

I've done it for all 3. I think for some of them you have to "raise it as a correction" or "raise it a dispute" or whatever their phrase it. I clicked through various drop down menus and EVENTUALLY got it right. I got emails within a couple of days saying they'd received it and where checking it out. And then about 10 days later maybe a bit longer I got notified they'd removed the link. I think I sent them mortgage settlement statements from the bank to say the joint mortgage was paid off (when house sold).

asingledad

I was about to ask this. My joint account with my ex-wife is just about to be closed and want to make sure association is ended. It is the only financial association we have.

Is it possible to get any indication of how much of an impact it has on my rating and how lenders will look at me?

sourcrates

asingledad said:

I was about to ask this. My joint account with my ex-wife is just about to be closed and want to make sure association is ended. It is the only financial association we have.

Is it possible to get any indication of how much of an impact it has on my rating and how lenders will look at me?

I found once our joint account was closed, the association between us was also removed, however that was the only joint financial product we had. 

Ratings are not a thing in the UK, despite the best attempts of the CRA marketing dept`s.

Pay your bills on time, avoid late payments, don`t default on credit agreements, or enter payment arrangements, be on the electoral role, obviously no CCJ`s or anything of that nature, don`t borrow what you don`t need, really simple common sense stuff like that, some suggest using a credit card for everyday purchases, and repaying the balance in full each month, that will create positive credit history, which is what the game is all about.

Pay no attention to the numbers they give you, they are not seen or used by lenders, lenders use there own scoring system, to determine whether to lend to you or not, one of the things they look at is your credit history, as well as your circumstances, current borrowing etc etc.

asingledad

To make my language accurate enough for @sourcrates taste what I meant was:

"Will the financial association with my ex-wife, assuming she has a far worse financial position than I do, have a significant impact on how lenders assess me and will that be accurately reflected in the scores rating agencies show me".

How long should I wait before raising a dispute, or should I do so immediately? I have noticed, that although I get frequent (weekly?) emails from the various services for tracking CRA information and scores, the numbers (e.g. amount on credit cards) seem to lag weeks behind the real ones.

MorningcoffeeIV

Because the scores don't reflect credit worthiness, they will generally drop with any change, good or bad, so you can expect a drop in scores.

However, lenders will view you more positively if negative factors are removed.

The balances you see lag because you're not viewing in real time. Lenders see real time data.

asingledad

Thanks, that is interesting. So they deliberately lag the data they show us, but try to persuade us to check more often than they update.

That said, the data they get is clearly not always real time or accurate I got an email this morning from Experian refusing to remove my financial association with my ex because they say we have an open joint account. The account was close last month so I have sent them a scan of a letter from the bank confirming this. I have a nasty feeling I am going to have to go through a lot of argument and hassle to get this done.

MorningcoffeeIV

Although it's real time, that still depends on when each lender reports to the CRA.

As soon as it's reported to the CRA, it becomes visible.. They won't accept your scan as evidence, for obvious reasons.

asingledad

Yes, they did not accept it as evidence, but it did get them to explain that it takes weeks before they get the data from lenders.

Its not really real time if the lenders do not send them data in real time though. Lenders will see data from other lenders (e.g. current debt) several weeks out of date. So if you pay off a lot of your debt do not expect lenders to see that until a month or so has gone.

There seem to be some strange lags. If Clearscore has it right, then Equifax have removed the financial association but not the overdraft in the current account.

KoshB5

Having previously worked for a CRA for many years, this is what happens at a high level:

• Companies predominantly send their data once a month, they do have the ability to change data to correct entries outside of their normal cycle
• Councils send their complete electoral roll once a year, with changes periodically through the year
• Hard search footprints are returned in real-time
• CIFAS data is real-time
• Any joint accounts that existed will be retained on each account holders file for 6 years after they are closed irrespective if a financial link has been broken as a credit file needs to show the history of all accounts held by an individual
• Having a financial association does not mean a company will always check the other persons file
• When people on these forums say companies don't see your credit score a CRA generates that is not technically correct, they should say it does not get used by all put a small number of companies. CRAs do send their score and there can be different scores depending on the product somebody is applying for. In the UK, unlike the US, there is no standard scoring, companies define their own based on their business model. One of the high street banks did use ours within their own score generation but for commercial reasons they would not disclose how or why