Whether you check your credit report regularly or have never taken the plunge, it can be tricky to decipher the information that’s included. It’s difficult to know if there’s anything missing, and to understand the impact the items in your credit report are having.
The idea of your credit report is to provide a view of your current and recent financial situation. This is both so that you can get an understanding of your position, and so that lenders you apply for can, too.
What’s in a credit report?
Because this is the goal of your credit report, it’s no surprise that much of the information held inside is about your financial behaviour. Your credit report includes a wealth of information about your financial life. The accounts and loans you hold (or have held, if they’ve been closed or repaid) and their status, applications you’ve made and credit checks that have been run on you, the details of any judgements like CCJs or IVAs that you may have, and the details of people you are financially associated with through joint credit accounts or applications. See our guide on how long does bad credit last if you’re affected by the above.
Your credit report also includes information about your addresses, any changes you’ve made to your name (for example, by getting married), and whether or not you are on the electoral register at your address. All of this information is used by lenders to help them decide whether to offer a loan to you or not.
How long does the information last?
It’s commonly thought that the information held in your credit report stays there forever. People think that if you have items in your report that could damage your ability to get a loan, these will follow you around, making it more difficult for you to be approved for credit for your entire life. Thankfully, this is generally not the case. Most of the information in your credit report is held for six years. When you apply for loans, lenders are looking to make sure you will be able to make the payments you’d owe them. So while there are exceptions, as a rule, the older a piece of information on your credit report, the less impact it will have on a lender’s decision.
So now you know – your credit report contains an enormous amount of information about you and your financial behaviour. But how do you know what impact the different types of information held have on your ability to get credit? Get more tips on cracking credit from our Money Savvy articles.
