What's on my credit report?

Your credit report is compiled by credit reference agencies using information from two main sources:

. The public record: e.g. electoral roll information, court judgments, individual voluntary arrangements and bankruptcies
. Information provided by lenders and financial institutions: e.g. credit accounts, credit applications and financial associations

The public record
On your credit report, electoral roll entries will show the name of your local authority, the address the local authority holds for you, the names of the people registered to vote at that address and the dates those people were registered.

Lenders use the electoral roll to check the identity of the people applying for credit and to make sure the addresses provided on application forms are correct. The electoral roll is published each December using information the public has supplied to local authorities. Credit reference agencies update their records every year, but if you move home you can tell your local authority, who will tell them about your change of registration in the course of the year.

Court judgments are held on your credit report for six years from the date of the judgment. Credit reference agencies receive the information from Registry Trust, an independent organisation set up by the Lord Chancellor's Department. Judgments that are paid within one month are removed from your records as long as a certificate of satisfaction has been issued by the court. Judgments paid after one month are kept on report but marked as 'satisfied' once a certificate has been issued by the court.

If you have been declared bankrupt, credit reference agencies will obtain this information from the official gazettes. It is kept on your report for six years after the date of the bankruptcy order.

Information from lenders
Credit reference agencies hold information about credit accounts over the last six years. Lenders provide this information. Some lenders provide information only on customers who have failed to keep to the terms of their credit agreement. These records are known as 'defaults'. However, most lenders provide information throughout the life of every credit account. Lenders can use the information to identify good payers as well as bad payers and those who already have several credit accounts.

Credit accounts can be classed as 'settled', 'active', 'defaulted', or 'delinquent'. A settled account is one where you have repaid your credit. Credit agencies keep a record of settled accounts for six years from the date you paid off all amounts owed to that account. The payment history shown on your report will relate to the period before you repaid your credit. An active account is one which you are still using. Agencies keep a record of these accounts until they are settled and then for six years afterwards. A defaulted account is one where you have not kept to a credit agreement. Agencies keep a record of these accounts for six years from the date you broke the relevant term of the credit agreement. The record will show how much money you still owe (the default). If you have paid off everything you owe since you broke the credit agreement, the account will be shown to be ‘satisfied’ at the balance. A delinquent account is one where your repayments have been at least three months in arrears for two or more consecutive months or have been late for more than three months over the past year.

Every record of a credit account will include a status history showing whether or not payments have been made on time. Credit accounts can include your payment record over up to 36 months. The most recent payment is shown as the first entry. The last 12 months’ payments are shown, and underneath there is a summary of the payment history over a period of up to 36 months (unless the status history shown is ‘8’). In the summary, the entries for 'number of status 1-2' and 'number of status 3+' identify how many times payments been up to two months late, or three or more months late, within the last 36 months (or since the account was opened).

Members of the Council of Mortgage Lenders record information on customers who have given up their homes or had them repossessed. The information may include the address of that home, the address from which the mortgage application was originally made, and the address the customer has moved to.

Other information
A record of lenders who have searched your report as a result of you applying for credit will be shown on your report for 12 months. This information can help lenders identify any unusual credit activity or overcommitment.

If your report specifies 'unrecorded enquiries', this shows that a company has searched your report for non-lending purposes. However, this information is shown only to you, not to lenders searching your report in order to make a lending decision. Lenders may also search your report to give you a credit quotation. These are recorded as quotation searches so other lenders do not mistake them for credit applications. Agencies make a record (known as a 'footprint') on your report to show that a report has been applied for in your name and address, but this will be shown only to you and not to lenders.

Your previous addresses, or any addresses you may use for correspondence, may be listed on your credit report. These links are created by account information moving between addresses, as a result of lenders checking your records at previous addresses, or as a result of information you give to the credit reference agency. Your credit report will show the two addresses that are linked, how the link was created, and the date and source of the link. The link will only be broken when agencies are asked to do so by the organisation that created the link.

CIFAS
CIFAS is a system developed in consultation with the Office of Fair Trading and the Office of the Information Commissioner. It aims to detect and prevent fraud, and so protect innocent people whose names, addresses or other details are used fraudulently by others in order to get credit. A CIFAS warning on your report does not mean you are being accused of fraud. Organisations who are members of CIFAS examine credit applications very carefully, and may contact you to make sure you have applied for the credit. They will not automatically refuse applications from people with warnings on their report.

GAIN - Gone Away Information Network
Credit reference agencies are members of GAIN, a network through which lenders share information on customers with debts who have moved home without telling their lenders of a forwarding address. The information may include both the address the customer moved from and any address the customer has since been recorded as living at. If you share a financial responsibility with someone else - for example, a joint court judgment, a joint account or a joint application for credit - this will be shown on your credit report together with who you share the responsibility with and when the connection was created.

Agencies may be told about any other names you have been known by and your report will show who gave them the information.

Information about other people
Your file may include financial information about members of your family who live, or have lived, with you. Lenders can take this information into account when assessing an application you make for credit. By law, this information must be included on your credit file because you must be shown all the information that is available to lenders, whether or not they use it.

The rules on using information about other people are changing and, in the future, financial information about other people will not be included on your file. After these changes have been made, only your own credit history, and that of anyone you share a financial responsibility with, will be provided to a lender.

To view your personal credit information that lenders are currently basing their credit decisions on, apply online for a credit report from Experian, the UK's largest credit reference agency, now. You will also receive a 30-day free trial to the CreditExpert Monitoring Service from Experian.

Get a free 30-day trial and a free copy of your Experian credit report.