My Free Credit Report

You almost certainly know all too well that the information in your credit report is used by the loan and credit card companies when considering whether or not to extend you credit, but do you know just what is actually in your personal credit report? For example, did you know that the information which are contained in your credit report could determine whether or not you are able to purchase a new home or will need to continue to live in your current ’shoebox’?

In many cases people believe that when a credit card company or other lender looks at your credit report that company is merely looking to see your credit score and, while this is definitely one of the things that they do look at, they are also looking at a great deal more. Above all, they are looking to see the amount of debt you have in comparison to your income and even quite small accounts, such as those with a mail order company, will be treated as a deduction from your income when considering a request for a loan.

If a credit card company, bank or other lender concludes that you have more money going out than you have coming in then your application will automatically be reject. In fact, the law requires that a specified percentage of your income has to be available to meet loan payments before the lender is permitted to approve it, whatever the reason for the loan.

Lenders are also looking at your credit history over the last seven years to see how well you have handled any loans during that period. In particular, they are looking to see if you have made your payments on time and will take note of any payments that were more than thirty days late. It may not have appeared particularly important to you at the time that you ran into a few problems and were late with your payments for several months on one of your accounts, however any new lender will certainly consider this when determining the risk of lending to you now.

Lenders is also going to see if any of your accounts have run into debt over the past seven years and if these debts have now been paid. If you have outstanding payments on an existing loan agreement lenders will be very wary about giving you additional credit before these are paid off.

Finally, your credit report will show if you have filed for bankruptcy, normally within the past ten years. Some people think that a lender is more likely to advance you credit if you have filed for bankruptcy as they have the protection of knowing that you cannot file again for a number of years. However, this is not the case and filing for personal bankruptcy is viewed as a red flag by the finance and credit card companies showing that you have already shown a tendency to get yourself in over your head when handling your finances.

Your credit report is an extremely important document which you should not only understand but which you ought to review occasionally for your own protection and peace of mind. Happily, the law states that you must be provided with a copy of your personal credit report once a year if you request it and so the first thing which yu ought to acquaint yourself with is how to obtain your free annual credit report. Having obtained your report you then need to look through it carefully to make sure that it is accurate and then to request that it be amended if it is not. In addition, there are some instances in which you can request alterations to your personal credit report, even if it is accurate, and here you will have to have the answers to hand for questions like how can I remove a judgment from my credit report?