Your file is not one document. There are three agencies, they do not hold identical information, and a lender may check any of them. Reviewing one and assuming the rest match is the most common mistake people make.
Set aside an hour and work through all three.
Get all three reports
- Experian
- Equifax
- TransUnion
All three must provide your statutory report, and several free services give ongoing access. Checking your own report is a soft search — it is visible only to you and has no effect on your file.
Check, line by line
Work through each report against this list. Note anything that looks wrong; do not act on it yet.
Personal details
- Name spelled correctly, including any previous names
- Date of birth correct
- Every address for the last six years present, with no gaps
- No addresses you have never lived at
- You are on the electoral roll at your current address
Accounts
- Every account listed is genuinely yours
- Closed accounts show as closed, with the correct date
- Credit limits are accurate and current
- Balances look approximately right
- Payment history matches your recollection, month by month
Adverse entries
- Any default is genuinely a default, and the date is correct
- Anything settled shows as settled
- No county court judgment you do not recognise
- Nothing that should have dropped off after six years is still showing
Connections
- Financial associations reflect people you actually share finances with
- Anyone you have separated from financially has been disassociated
Searches
- Every hard search corresponds to an application you actually made
- No searches you do not recognise (these can be an early fraud signal)
Challenging something wrong
You have the right to have inaccurate information corrected. Accurate information cannot be removed, by you or by anyone charging for it.
- Raise a dispute with the credit reference agency showing the entry
- State plainly what is wrong and what the correct position is
- Attach anything that supports it — a settlement letter, a statement, a closure confirmation
- The agency contacts the lender, which normally has 28 days to respond
- If it is not resolved, add a notice of correction — up to 200 words on your file explaining the circumstances, which lenders will see
- If you are still unhappy, the Financial Ombudsman Service may be able to consider it
Dispute the same entry with each agency that shows it. Correcting one does not correct the others.
The two numbers that move most
Utilisation. Reported on your statement date, not the date you pay. Paying in full every month can still show high utilisation if the statement lands before your payment. Either pay down before the statement date or ask for a limit increase.
Payment history. Set every account to at least the minimum by direct debit, so a forgotten payment cannot undo months of work. You can always pay more manually.
A monthly routine
- Check one of the three agencies each month, rotating between them
- Confirm every direct debit went out
- Note your utilisation on each card around the statement date
- Once a year, check all three properly against this list
A note on what this is
This describes how credit files work and what is worth checking. It is not advice about your particular circumstances, and no legitimate service can promise a specific score or guarantee a lending decision — lenders apply their own criteria to the underlying data.
If you would like help working through your reports and building a plan around what you find, that is what our credit building service does.