Electoral Roll Entries: 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.
County Court Judgements: Court judgments are held on your credit report for six years from the date of the judgment. The Credit Reference Agencies receives the information from Registry Trust, an independent organisation set up by the Lord Chancellor's Department.
Bankruptcy: If you have been declared bankrupt, credit reference agencies will obtain this information from the official gazettes. It is kept on your file for six years after the date of the bankruptcy order.
Information from lenders: 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 assettled, active, defaulted, or delinquent.
CIFAS: CIFAS is a system that was developed to detect and prevent fraud, it protects innocent people whose names and addresses have been used fraudulently by others to obtain credit.
A CIFAS warning on your file 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 file.
GAIN: 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.
Other Information: A record of lenders who have searched your file as a result of you applying for credit will be shown for 12 months. This information can help lenders identify any unusual credit activity or over-commitment.
Agencies make a record (known as a "footprint") on your report to show that a file 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 file. 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 file 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.
It could be that bankruptcy is the most suitable debt solution for you.
You may hear that bankruptcy should be considered a last resort, and that you should try an IVA (Individual Voluntary Arrangement), IPP (Informal Payment Plan) or DMP (Debt Management Plan) first, but this isn't always suitable. What's right for you depends entirely on your circumstances as these are all solutions to the same problem, but tackled differently.
You may find that you would benefit from professional help in completing your Statement of Affairs and Bankruptcy Petition.
From the time that you decide to apply for a bankruptcy order, to the day that you are declared bankrupt, you may seek assistance in order to keep your creditors and bailiffs at bay. In addition, performing your own research into bankruptcy often results in receiving conflicting information, depending on the source(s).
Personal bankruptcy for Scottish residents is called Sequestration.
To be sequestrated you must owe at least £1,500 and either: one or more of your creditors must have taken you to court to enforce or demand you repay a debt or you must have been on a debt payment programme under DAS that has been revoked and one of the creditors in the DPP have been to court and obtained a decree on one of the debts.
You are immediately free from debt and will not be responsible for any of your pre-existing debts.
It is a fresh start for you and your family to start again and build yourself up from a position of strength. You are immediately protected from all your creditors who form part of your bankruptcy.
Clear Insolvency is trading name of Hamilton and Clarke Ltd.
Registered in the UK. Company no. 6465374. Consumer Credit License (UK) 612841
Clear Insolvency, 27 Old Gloucester Street, London, WC1N 3AX
