I face being unable to secure a mortgage and losing the property I want to buy because of an anomaly with address formats in Edinburgh. The flat I rent appears in two ways: Royal Mail lists it as 5/7, while on the electoral roll it is 5 3F1 (building no 5, third-floor, flat 1). My bank has it as 5 3F1. This has affected my credit report because Equifax has no record of me under the the Royal Mail format. It told me to ask Royal Mail to change its listing, but it insists its format is correct.
LW, Edinburgh
The same issue affects many Scottish residents who live in older tenement buildings, and the consequences, should they apply for any kind of credit, can be serious. Historically, flats in tenements were registered according to the street number of the building, which storey they were on, and how far they were from the top of each staircase. This has been retained for old blocks. When Royal Mail computerised its database, it counted the number of flats in a block and allocated consecutive numbers.
This matters because it’s the Royal Mail database, the postcode address file (PAF), which companies tend to rely on by default. If you apply for a mortgage online using the lender’s dropdown menu to find your address, it is likely to be the Royal Mail version. Therefore, if your bank and other companies have you registered according to the electoral roll, the lender will receive an incomplete report, or draw a blank.
The same problem can occur if a property is interchangeably known by a house name and a street number, or if “apartment” is substituted for “flat”. It’s therefore vital the same address appears on the electoral roll, the PAF and all payment accounts. Royal Mail says: “We always work closely with local authority street-naming teams to ensure our data is accurate. In this instance, there was a discrepancy between the historic address and the latter-day address.
“Royal Mail has agreed to change this on our postcode address finder database.”
Everyone thinking of applying for credit should check the details registered with the three main credit reference agencies well beforehand, and flag up any discrepancies, since a failed credit check leaves a footprint that can deter other lenders.
Lisa Hardstaff, head of customer experience at Equifax, says if there are different formats for the same address a reference agency will need to manually make a link between the PAF address, and an individual’s electoral register address. “This situation shows the importance of checking your credit report, before you make an application, to ensure that all the information is correct and up to date,” she adds.
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