It appears that the previous tennant in our house left owing lots of money. We are constantly bombarded by phone calls from debt collection companies looking for her and now we have received letters from the County Court for her, I suspect she has been given a CCJ.
We are a bit worried that her debts and maybe a CCJ registered to our address may affect our credit rating, do bad addresses still exist, or is the debt purely registered against her name.
She left over a year ago and we have no forwarding address for her btw.
Any thoughts would be welcome
Open all the letters and call all the agencies telling them to go away (or words to that effect). Finally worked for us (after five years!)
You might want to check on Experian, too, but make sure you cancel the credit card thing! Must do that soon...
I'd see if you can find some old bills in your name at this address, dated as far back as you can get. Copies to all debt collection agencies, Experian & the like, and the county court too.
Otherwise you're lumbered with her bad credit history
That's just not true, a credit history is yours, not where you live, which is why if you apply for credit if you have lived at an address for less than 3 years you need to give your previous address.
Black lists, bad credit addresses are both urban myths and simply do not exist.
Your credit file is your credit file and unless you are named on an agreement that is not well conducted it will not affect your credit history, file or score in the slightest.
When a lender (any lender) does a search or score they will ask your full name, date of birth and 3 year address history. This stops other peoples bad credit history being associated with you (unless you have the same name and date of birth as the individual with the bad credit.
My phone number (which is ex directory) used to belong to someone in a lot of debt but they didn't live at the house we moved into. I wonder how long BT waits before reissuing old telephone numbers because I get calls from people looking for them almost every day and they are extremely persistent when I say they have the wrong number and then they usually start trying to get detgails about me.
Does my nut in almost as much as those "are you the homeowner?"
Fu&£ off!!
Credit reference agencies are lazy and incompetent and there are plenty of examples of mix ups by vague associated eg shared address. I'd write to Experian and Equifax and tell them you are not associated in any way with the previous occupier.
Ta folks, very helpful.