Credit rating following Covid lockdown

DFzt

I have two points I would like to raise.

1) She is using a financial "advisor" who has already fleeced her for £250 for nothing, the mortgage offer is still not in place. I did not think that these people charged for their services and made a living on commission from lenders.

2) She is self-employed and had a car on finance. During the COVID lockdown, eventually she was forced to shut the business for a while, so as advised, she requested a break in her finance repayments. After her return to work, she got back in touch with the finance company to re-start payments. They failed to answer the phones, she used their website to try and get in touch all without response, they were in the same boat as the rest of us with staff working from home and being understaffed in the office. Eventually she got through and restarted the payments. After applying for a mortgage offer, she found that the company had placed a missed payment against her record which is affecting her credit rating. At the time, they said she had missed a payment (which was their fault) but she over-paid to catch up with the schedule which she did easily, she thought no more about it at the time she was not considering a mortgage.

She has approached the credit rating company and they say that only the company that put the rating against her can apply to have it removed.

Does anyone know of any government or other source of advice regarding this, it is completely unfair and unjustified. I have looked at the MSE advice and have tried to contact the company.

MorningcoffeeIV

The company needs to be your first port of call.

You can go to FoS but not until you've been through the complaints process.

One registered missed payment from three years ago will have minimal impact. Remember that her credit rating is not a thing. Only her history matters.

MattMattMattUK

Firstly, who is "she"?

DFzt said:

I have two points I would like to raise.

1) She is using a financial "advisor" who has already fleeced her for £250 for nothing, the mortgage offer is still not in place. I did not think that these people charged for their services and made a living on commission from lenders.

A financial advisor offers advice, a mortgage broker deals with mortgages, if she wants a mortgage offer she needs to go to a mortgage advisor. Was the financial advisor an IFA, some random person she found online etc? Financial advisors are regulated, they have to state what their service is and what the costs will be, have they done what they said they would for their fee? Has "she" followed the advice given?

DFzt said:

2) She is self-employed and had a car on finance. During the COVID lockdown, eventually she was forced to shut the business for a while, so as advised, she requested a break in her finance repayments. After her return to work, she got back in touch with the finance company to re-start payments. They failed to answer the phones, she used their website to try and get in touch all without response, they were in the same boat as the rest of us with staff working from home and being understaffed in the office. Eventually she got through and restarted the payments. After applying for a mortgage offer, she found that the company had placed a missed payment against her record which is affecting her credit rating. At the time, they said she had missed a payment (which was their fault) but she over-paid to catch up with the schedule which she did easily, she thought no more about it at the time she was not considering a mortgage.

From the sound of it the missed payment markers are correct, so they will stay, though it should now show that her account is up to date and she is paying on time if that is the case.

DFzt said:

She has approached the credit rating company and they say that only the company that put the rating against her can apply to have it removed.

Credit ratings are not a thing in the UK, credit records are. The fact that she missed payments is factually correct and so is very unlikely that it will be removed, though if she has now brought the account up to date then that should also show.

DFzt said:

Does anyone know of any government or other source of advice regarding this, it is completely unfair and unjustified. I have looked at the MSE advice and have tried to contact the company.

From what you have said it appears entirely fair and justified, she missed payments, those missed payments have been recorded on her credit report as a statement of fact. If "she" is not you, then you can try and contact the company all you want but they will be unable to discuss anything with you as the account is not yours. 

sourcrates

One missed payment is unlikely to have much effect on her going forward.

A missed payment is not as serious a breach as a default, that would give her problems obtaining credit.

When an application for consumer credit is made, they don`t always check that far back in your credit history.

This does vary company to company, as they all have their own acceptance criteria, and it does depend on the credit product you are applying for, but generally the further back in time the missed payment was, the less effect it will have on credit applications.

DFzt

We have evidence that they did not answer their phones and evidence that their "help" line was unattended, she made every effort to re-start the payments but they had no staff to support their customers due ot the period at the end of long-down. Surely this is down to them, we have transcripts from her attempts to get in touch

CliveOfIndia

DFzt said:

We have evidence that they did not answer their phones and evidence that their "help" line was unattended, she made every effort to re-start the payments but they had no staff to support their customers ... we have transcripts from her attempts to get in touch

What do you mean by "transcripts"?  If you speak to a company on the phone then calls are certainly sometimes recorded.  But if you were unable to get through then I'm not sure what form any recording would take?

That aside, an isolated missed payment is unlikely to be the sole cause of a mortgage refusal.  It's likely that "she" simply does not match the lender's criteria - or else has other negative markers on one (or more) of her 3 credit files.

DFzt said:

1) She is using a financial "advisor" who has already fleeced her for £250 for nothing, the mortgage offer is still not in place. I did not think that these people charged for their services and made a living on commission from lenders.

Financial advisors will sometimes charge a fee for their services, others will not charge a fee but will earn commission.  Either way, "she" (whoever that is) should have been told from the outset what fees (if any) would be charged.

DFzt said:

She has approached the credit rating company and they say that only the company that put the rating against her can apply to have it removed.

This is correct.  The CRAs only report on the data supplied to them by lenders, they cannot amend the data in any way.  If you feel a dispute is warranted with regards to the missed payment marker then you need to contact the lender - only they can issue a correction to the CRAs (if they agree that it is justified).

MEM62

DFzt said:

She is using a financial "advisor" who has already fleeced her for £250 for nothing, the mortgage offer is still not in place. I did not think that these people charged for their services and made a living on commission from lenders.

IFA's being paid commission was abolished over a decade ago.  Mortgage brokers however, can still take commission.  Which did she see and what services did they provide?