If you’ve moved house a lot, it can be difficult to keep track of every address and move-in date. The thought of rummaging through reams of old letters and emails to find your previous addresses, and the dates you lived there, can be a little daunting.

Thankfully, there’s a quick way to find a record of your previous addresses that’s easy, online, and in one place.

How to see your previous addresses

Your previous addresses will be recorded on your Credit Report, providing your lenders and local councils have shared them with the Credit Reference Agencies. You can use checkmyfile to view your Multi Agency Credit Report, where you’ll be able to see your recorded address history.

Gathering your complete information from Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion our Multi Agency Credit Report is the most detailed in the UK, making it quick and easy to find all of your information in one place.

Try checkmyfile free for 30 days, then just £14.99 per month. You can cancel online at any time, and our expert team is on hand should you have any questions about your Credit Report.

Do previous addresses affect my Credit Rating?

Previous addresses do not directly affect your Credit Rating, as they are considered neutral for the purposes of credit checks.

This means that you won’t be declined credit based solely on whether you’ve resided at lots of addresses, just one, or lived in a particularly undesirable area (such as a region with low credit ratings or high cases of fraud). Similarly, the current residents at any of your previous addresses should also have absolutely no influence over your Credit Rating and applications. Their information is entirely separate to your own, regardless of any common address history.

That said, it is crucial to understand that previous addresses are still important to your Credit Report and applications, even though they don’t directly factor into your Credit Score.

This is because your previous addresses will be recorded as ‘Linked Addresses’. These linked addresses don’t have a direct effect on your score, but any information in your details found at these linked addresses will appear on your Credit Report. Information relating to you at your previous addresses certainly can affect your Credit Rating and applications, so it pays to understand what’s held about you and where it is registered.

What type of information might be held at my previous addresses?

Various types of Credit Report information might be held about you at a previous address. Both open and closed accounts can be recorded on your Credit Report, even if they’re still registered to an address other than your current one.

Having closed credit accounts registered to your previous address is normal and expected, so should be no cause for concern. Most lenders will not change the reported address on a closed account, providing it was correct at the time. Closed accounts will be automatically deleted from your Credit Report after six years pass from date of closure.

Your open accounts will remain registered to your previous address until you contact your lender to request that they update the address details. If you forget to contact one of your lenders (as is easily done – especially among all the other distractions that come with moving house) you may find that you have an open bank account, credit card, or mobile phone contract (as just a few examples) still registered to your former residence. These accounts would still be considered valid for a credit check, so they would influence your applications, either positively or negatively, depending on how the particular account has been managed.

Other types of information can also be registered against you at previous addresses, such as County Court Judgments and bankruptcies – these would almost certainly make it harder and more expensive to take out credit.

Your historic Electoral Roll listings will also be reported at your previous addresses, with your reported name at the time and the date you were registered, as long as the local council correctly shared the information with the Credit Reference Agencies. Having an active Electoral Roll listing at your current address is considered a major positive for your Credit Rating, but previous listings tend not to have much influence.

Put simply, the record of a previous address itself won’t affect your Credit Rating, but any information in your details registered to the address certainly will. Account repayment information on your Credit Report will only stop having an influence once it has been removed - usually after six years.

How do my previous addresses end up on my Credit Report?

As already mentioned, your previous addresses will be recorded on your Credit Report as ‘Linked Addresses’. These linked addresses will be created by your lenders whenever they record a new address for you. The lender will share the new address with the Credit Reference Agencies, where it is added to your Credit Report as a linked address.

It’s important to note that there is no guarantee that your lenders will share every single one of your addresses with the Credit Reference Agencies. The decision to share your credit account data with the Credit Reference Agencies ultimately rests with your lenders, so while it is expected that you will see a detailed record of your previous addresses, there is never a guarantee that all of the addresses will be there.

Linked addresses are also created when your local council shares your Electoral Roll listing with the Credit Reference Agencies. In this case, the local authority is the one responsible for sharing the data, rather than a lender.

If you know that an address is missing from your linked addresses, you can add the address to your checkmyfile account. We use this to obtain your Credit Report from the Credit Reference Agencies, and includes your name, date of birth, and most recent addresses. Adding an address to your checkmyfile account is as easy as sending our expert team a secure message once logged into your account.

This way, the added address will be searched along with any other registered addresses on your account whenever you generate a new Credit Report through checkmyfile – this will ensure that the addresses and any information in your details registered there will appear on your Credit Report. Note that only three addresses can be manually searched when you generate your Credit Report – your current address and two previous – as this emulates how prospective lenders will search for your details when performing a credit check on you. Our expert team can help you add a previous address to your account if you need some guidance.

An important take-away is to make sure that all of your credit accounts are updated to your new address whenever you move property. This way, even if some of your previous addresses are missing from your Credit Report, you can be confident knowing that your accounts will be found in full whenever your current address is searched. Ensuring your registered address is up to date also makes it easier to receive correspondence from your lenders, and stops your post from being sent to occupants at your previous properties.

When a lender updates your registered address on a credit account, it may take them up to six weeks to share the new information with the Credit Reference Agencies. This is simply because most lenders send data to the CRAs on a monthly basis.

For this reason, it can often take a month or so for changes to be reflected on your Credit Report. You can check that the lender has amended the registered address correctly by monitoring your Credit Report for a few months after moving to your new house.

How do I remove a previous address from my Credit Report?

If a previous address is correct, then it will remain on your Credit Report indefinitely. There should be no cause for concern, as previous addresses do not directly affect your Credit Rating, and they are useful for making sure that the information on your Credit Report is complete.

Where you spot an incorrect previous address, you have the option to dispute the entry to request it is removed from your Credit Report.

The quickest way to dispute an incorrect address link is to contact the lender that created it. Your checkmyfile report will show you all of your address links at all Credit Reference Agencies, including the lender that created each address link. It’s then just a matter of contacting the source lender to request they remove the address link from your Credit Report.

As the reporting lender owns and controls the address link entry, they are legally required to remove it if it is factually incorrect.

If the lender is unable to remove the address link, you can then dispute the entry with the Credit Reference Agencies. As the CRAs have a statutory 28-day timeframe to respond, and because they can only amend information with the source lender’s permission, this route often takes longer than contacting the lender directly, but it can be appropriate when the lender has been unhelpful.

Our expert team can dispute information with all three Credit Reference Agencies – Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion on behalf of active subscribers, so feel free to let us know if you need any guidance.

Why do I have an incorrect address on my Credit Report?

Errors are rare, but they can happen. Most incorrect address links are the result of an admin error from the reporting lender. As companies have different ways of formatting addresses, you may see variations of your addresses – which is to be expected and is not itself a cause for concern – but sometimes these variations can be so different that they are simply inaccurate.

Incorrect address links can also be signs of fraudulent activity in your details, where the fraudster has applied for credit using said address. Because of this, it’s always a good idea to contact the lender that created the address link so they can investigate for you. If the address link is simply an admin error, they should correct their mistake. If it instead relates to fraudulent activity, they’ll be able to look into this thoroughly for you and make sure your Credit Report is updated accordingly.

You can find your linked addresses on your Multi Agency Credit Report – it’s free for 30 days, and then just £14.99 per month. Sign-up is quick and easy; cancellation is hassle-free. Our expert team can be contacted through your account should you need any assistance.

Updated by Sam Griffin on 18 August 2021