How To Find Your Credit Score

Your Credit Report and credit score will play an important role in determining whether you’ll be able to secure the borrowing you need for your mortgage. Mortgage lenders will review the information held on your report, along with other key factors on your application such as your income and deposit amount, before reaching a decision.

So, knowing how to find your credit score and checking the information held on your report is a wise move before you submit your mortgage application.

Where to find your Credit Report

Your Credit Report is put together by independent companies known as credit reference agencies. In the UK, there are three main ones: 

• Equifax

• Experian 

• Trans Union

These agencies have access to your financial and credit history, and that’s how they put together your report. You can use any of these to get a copy of your credit report. But they differ in what they show you and how they reach their credit score. 

The three main credit reference agencies must, by law, give you a copy of your Credit Report, along with their credit score for free. You can request this in either a digital or physical format. To request the digital report you’ll need to go online, but you can also ask for it to be posted to you. 

For a detailed and thorough overview of everything in your credit record, including all the information held by the three agencies compiled onto one report, go to Checkmyfile**.You can download your report for free with a 30 day trial (usually £14.99 a month, you can cancel any time).

**When you click through to our affiliate links, we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. We only recommend sites we trust and believe in.

What information is in your Credit Report?

Your Credit Report is your financial history from the last six years. It will show the following things:

• Electoral Roll. Whether you’re on the electoral register or not. This is often the first thing a lender will look at because it’s a quick and easy way for them to confirm your name and address.

• Credit accounts. A list of all your bank and credit card accounts, outstanding credit agreements like loans and any other debts you have. The information will show whether you make repayments in full and on time, whether you have missed any payments, defaulted, and whether you are actively using any credit available to you.

• Current account. Who your current account provider is and details of your overdraft amount.

• Personal details. Your date of birth, name, current address and any previous addresses.

• Financial links. Details of anyone you share a financial link with (spouse or life partner, for example). This includes any joint bank accounts and joint credit agreements.

• Public records & fraud information. Any outstanding County Court Judgments (CCJs), bankruptcies, individual voluntary arrangements (IVAs) and repossessions. It’ll contain any information around fraud – whether you have been involved in any fraudulent activity or if someone has committed fraud in your name.

The credit reference agencies create their own Credit Report from each of these things and use this information to calculate your overall ‘credit score’.

What is a credit score?

A credit score is a three-digit number on a scale that shows how good your credit borrowing has been over the last six years. A high score tells you you’ve had a good history with credit and been able to pay your financial commitments on time. A low score suggests you’ve had some credit issues over this period.

A credit score will appear as ‘very poor’, ‘poor’, ‘fair’, ‘good’ or ‘excellent’. 

There are two ways you might get a credit score. One is from a credit referencing agency, and the other is from the lender you’re applying for a mortgage with. Both are calculated from your Credit Report, and both are a number on a scale. 

• A credit score created by a credit reference agency: This is the most common way to get a credit score and will be available to you from the main credit reference agencies: Experian, Equifax and Trans Union. Each agency has its own way of creating a credit score and you can download your reports at any time to see what your score is. Your score will change slightly depending on which agency you check.

• A credit score created by a mortgage lender: Your lender can also look at your credit file and create a score that allows them to assess whether they want to lend to you. Each lender will have different criteria for what makes a ‘good’ credit score, using slightly different data points or requirements. Generally, you won’t see this score, the lender generates it for themselves during the mortgage application process.

What is a good credit score?

Each credit reference agency has a different way of defining what makes a credit score fall into the categories of: excellent, good, fair, poor or very poor. 

• Experian - measure their scores on a 0-999 scale

• Equifax - measure scores on a 0-700 scale

• TransUnion - measure scores on a 0-710 scale

This is how the three main UK credit reference agencies categorise their scores:

The scores are unique to the credit reference agency that calculates them. Lenders usually have their own criteria for what makes a ‘good’ credit score and what makes a ‘bad’ credit score, so these should only be used as a guide.

When to check your credit report

It’s a good habit to regularly check your Credit Report, but there’s two points when checking it becomes most important.

• When you’re about to apply for a mortgage or any other credit agreement. If you’re considering applying for a mortgage, loan or credit card, knowing what your current credit score is will help you work out how likely you are to be accepted by the lender. Having a good idea about whether or not you’ll be accepted by a lender is always a good idea. you can then take steps to improve your credit score before you apply.

• If you haven’t checked your credit report or score for a while. It’s highly recommended to check your Credit Report and credit score if it’s been a while since last doing so. Regular checks allow you to stay on top of whether your score is going up or down and take action if it’s the latter. You can also spot any mistakes or fraud and correct or report this.

Checking your own credit score won’t have any negative impact on your overall credit history. But if you’re applying for multiple credit agreements this will come up on your report. With this in mind, it can be worth asking a potential lender to perform a ‘quotation search’ or ‘soft credit check’ when you’re after a quote, particularly if you’re shopping around. This stops multiple hard checks being carried out and logged on your credit file.

Fraud and your credit history

An important reason to regularly check your credit score is so you can spot fraudulent activity. If you have any fraudulent activity on your report, it’ll be shown using what’s known as a Cifas marker. Cifas stands for Credit Industry Fraud Avoidance System. And they are a fraud prevention agency. 

They can add a marker to your credit file if they think you might have been a victim of fraud. The marker is there to protect you, and flag if something doesn’t look right. For example, if someone has taken out a credit account in your name. 

If you have a Cifas marker, it doesn’t mean you can’t get a mortgage. But it can complicate any credit application you make and mean a lender might need to perform more rigorous identity checks.

If you have a Cifas marker, contact Cifas with any questions you have about it. 

Improving your credit score

It’s always worth taking steps to improve your credit score when you’re considering entering a credit agreement.

There’s lots of ways you can improve your credit score if you need to. Some are super simple like making sure you’re on the electoral roll. Others are longer term, like managing your credit more effectively by paying all of your financial commitments on time, repaying your credit card balance in full and keeping a healthy distance from your maximum credit limits.