Electoral Roll more important than you think

Posted in 'Electoral Roll' by Ian Carpenter

12 January 2012

During these uncertain economic times, lenders remain wary of the threat of bad debt, which caused so many problems at the start of the last recession. While lenders’ appetite to lend has shown signs of recovering, greater precautions are still being taken and the Electoral Roll is central to proving your stability as a prospective customer. It is a key indicator of your stability, helping lenders to verify your existence at an address, as well as often being the ‘hook’ upon which all other information is held, when your details are searched during the crucial credit checking part of your application.

Every year, on 1 December - following the annual canvass by your local council - each of the credit reference agencies purchases the Electoral Roll information, which is then uploaded to their database over a period of around 4-6 weeks. This is typically when your Electoral Roll status is updated on your credit file, although manual updates can be requested throughout the year.

Checking your credit file is the only way to ensure that your Electoral registration details have been correctly updated by the agencies. Discrepancies and errors are commonplace, and can result in lenders failing to match your details when they run a credit search, or returning wrong information about your Electoral Roll status, which can cause your credit applications to be declined.

5 simple checks can help to to ensure that your credit applications are not held back by your Electoral Roll status

1. Make sure that your Electoral Roll status and your credit accounts are reported in exactly the same address format
2. Check that the address format of your Electoral Roll confirmation is the same as reported on Royal Mail’s Postcode Address Finder (PAF) database – check here.
3. Ensure that there are no discrepancies in the format of your name, or address, held by the agencies
4. Ensure your Electoral Roll status is correctly reported with each credit reference agency
5. Check the start date of your Electoral Roll confirmation is correct – the longer you have been registered, the better

The Multi Agency Credit Report Subscription is the only service where you can check your Electoral Roll status with Experian, Equifax and Callcredit in one place. Access all of the important information in an easy-to-understand format, and get expert advice and support on addressing any problems. Our service is free for the first 30 days, and then just £9.99 per month.