How To Obtain Your UK Credit Report

There are two main UK credit report companies and below we describe how best to contact them to obtain your details.

These are commercial companies who have been licenced by the Office of Fair Trading to hold both public and private information about individuals. This information relates to almost every adult resident in the UK!

Public information includes your electoral roll information, any county court judgements (known as CCJs) and bankruptcies.

Private information includes details about applications for loans, existing loan details, any current or previous arrears (late or missed payments) and any properties which may have been repossessed.

Firstly, it is easy to do this by post or online. Before you contact them, you will need to know details of any former addresses during the preceeding six years. The agencies will also need to know the dates during which you lived at any or all of these addresses.

The agencies charge a nominal fee for providing the information to you. At the time of writing, that fee, by post is just Ł2. However, it may be that different amounts are charged online.

As a general rule, if you have applied for a loan, credit card or mortgage, the lender will check the result of just one of the two companies. Which company they use, you will probably not find out - unless there is a problem!

Should you disagree with the information held on the UK credit report files, it is possible to change the details. After an investigation has been carried out to confirm the correct details, inaccuracies should be altered.

To contact these credit referencing agencies...

Experian Ltd, Consumer Help Services, PO Box 8000, Nottingham, NG80 7WF

and by phone: 0844 241 6212

online: Experian

and,

Equifax plc, Consumer Advice Centre, PO Box 1140, Bradford, BD1 5US

online: Equifax