Are you correctly listed on the 2012 Electoral Roll?

Posted in 'Credit Reports' by Barry Stamp

29 November 2011

The forms are in, and the updates are underway. The UK’s three credit reference agencies - Callcredit, Equifax and Experian - will be updating the version of the Electoral Roll that appears on your credit file over the next few weeks. Indeed, the website 192.com claims to have updated their own version already, so the agencies won’t be far behind them.

Come the New Year, anyone who has been left off – either through not registering themselves or (less common but possible) human error – faces a drop in their credit rating.

Each of the credit reference agencies adds the new version of the Electoral Register to their databases independently, and so it’s important to check that all three have been updated correctly. The Electoral Roll remains one of the main tools that lenders use when they verify you at your current address.

How you filled out the form your council provided will also determine whether or not you have protected your privacy by successfully opted out of being included on the ‘edited’ version of the Electoral Register. As the law currently stands, the Edited Register can by used by anyone for any purpose. The Ministry of Justice has recently carried out a consultation on whether this should be amended or abolished altogether – the public consultation ran until February 2010 –but the findings have yet to be published.

By checking your credit report based on all three agencies with checkmyfile, you’ll not only be able to make sure that your Electoral Roll listing has been updated with each of the three credit reference agencies, but also which version of the register you have been included on.

Our Multi Agency Credit Report monitoring service is by far the cheapest way of checking – it’s free to trial for the first 30 days and then only £8.99 per month afterwards.

Even if you find that one credit reference agency is slightly behind the others in updating their records, you’ll be able to check your file again in the New Year.

Check your credit report now