What's In a Credit Report?

Experian and Equifax reveal that one in three adults has bad credit + some form of negative or incorrect information registered on the credit file. So what's in a credit file?

• Electoral Roll information - if your not listed, lenders consider you a bad risk for credit.
• A list of people you have financial links with
• Any county court judgments (ccj's, decrees) for the past six years?
• All your credit accounts and repayments information. These include credit cards, catalogue companies, mortgage and hire purchase agreements
• A record of searches made by lenders as a result of you applying for credit

Your basic credit score tells you very little and is pretty useless. It will be a number that indicates whether you are a good or bad payer of bills. For example, with Equifax a score below 299 is very poor, 300-349 is poor, 350-399 is fair, 400-474 is good and above 475 is excellent.

To get a better indication of how you can improve your credit score, you need to get a more detailed (and expensive) credit report. It costs from £12. With this, you get a full list of your credit agreements.