Personal finance

Your credit rating matters- and you should take careful steps to safeguard it, and repair it if you feel it does not fairly represent your circumstances. This pack contains documents for you to start the repair process, and to report to credit card companies if you feel your account has been accessed without your permission.
See the individual information associated with each document in this pack for a full description of their use.

This document helps you to improve your credit rating by removing incorrect information from your credit files and adding explanations (where appropriate) as to why your credit history was bad. You can also use this document if you wish to “freeze” your credit to prevent fraudsters from opening accounts on your behalf. You should use our "Request for credit files" document before this one. YOU CANNOT USE THIS DOCUMENT WITHOUT YOUR STATUTORY CREDIT REPORTS. Please note that this document should not be used in cases of identity theft, where our "Identity recovery" document should be used instead. If there are credit agreements in your Statutory Credit Reports which you did not sign, you have been a victim of identity theft.

If there is an error on your credit card statement, you should notify your credit card company as soon as possible and can use this document to do so. This letter is only appropriate for use where your card is still in your possession, i.e. it hasn't been lost or stolen, but there are unknown charges on your account. It is good practice to send this letter by recorded delivery post and keep a copy for your records, so that you have evidence of your correspondence with the credit card company.

This letter should be sent to an organisation which has refused you credit, requesting them to review their decision and/or to tell you their main reason for refusing you credit and to send you the details of the Credit Reference Agency they used to justify the rejection. The lender may be persuaded to change its mind if you are able to provide additional relevant information that would not otherwise have been known to the lender, for example, that since you applied for credit you have obtained a better higher paid job. It may also indicate to you that there is something wrong with your credit rating; in which case, you can take further steps to rectify the problem.

Use this letter to inform your bank of an unauthorised cashpoint withdrawal that you have noticed when looking at your bank statement. The letter requests the bank to refund the money to your account.

Use this document to inform a creditor that you are having, or will have difficulties, maintaining your payments and to explain the reason why. The letter will ask the creditor to hold any action until an anticipated improvement in your financial circumstances occurs, or after you review your financial situation, you are able to formulate a proposal to the creditor for the debt.

Use this document to record your income from all sources and total expenditure, and to record what your debts are and where (if applicable) you have fallen into arrears with such debts.  The document will then calculate what surplus income (if any) you have.  With this information, you can review and make decisions about whether you need to reduce your expenditure, and if so, where you might make savings; and about how best to use any surplus income that you have.

If you are having, or know that you are about to have, difficulties making your mortgage payments, use this document to explain the problem to your mortgage lender. This document will help you outline the steps you will be taking and what assistance you would like from your mortgage lender.

You can use this document whether or not you are already in arrears with your mortgage account. It is best to tackle any problem or anticipated problem with your mortgage payments before it becomes unmanageable. This document may be used in conjunction with the document 'Income and expenditure statement'.

After you have completed a review of your financial circumstances using the document 'Income and expenditure statement', you can use this document to inform your creditor that you are unable at the present time to make a proposal for your debt, that you will contact your creditor again when your circumstances change and to request that your creditor hold action for the debt in the meantime.

After you have completed a review of your financial circumstances using the document 'Income and expenditure statement', use this document to make a proposal to your creditor for your debt, supported by your completed income and expenditure statement. This document can be used whether the debt to this creditor is a priority debt or a non-priority debt. Although a creditor does not have to accept your proposal, this document will improve your chances by guiding you towards making a fair proposal that is backed up by full and frank disclosure of your financial circumstances.

Use this document to generate a promissory note, which is a written promise that you – the ‘maker’ - will pay a fixed sum of money to the payee either on demand or on the date specified in the note. The maker can be a limited company, partnership or individual, and the payee may be either a named person or the bearer of the note on the date it becomes payable. Note that no provision is made for interest on the loan.

Use this document to generate a promissory note, which is a written promise that you – the ‘maker’ - will pay a fixed sum of money by way of instalments on specified dates. The maker can be a limited company, partnership or individual, and the payee may be either a named person or the bearer of the note on the date it becomes payable. The note allows for interest to be paid on the loan.

This is a package of letters that is designed to help a user take appropriate action to correct bad data in their credit files following on from an identity theft. Before using this document you need to use our "Request for credit files" document to produce the letters to credit reference agencies to obtain your Statutory Credit Reports. YOU CANNOT USE THIS DOCUMENT WITHOUT YOUR STATUTORY CREDIT REPORTS. In your Statutory Credit Report, there should have been credit agreement(s) in your name which you yourself did not sign, otherwise, you should use the document "Credit rating repair".

You should use this document to obtain a copy of your Statutory Credit Files to find out if there is incorrect information in your files, whether this is due to identity theft or error. The document will create the 3 letters you need to send to the three main credit reference agencies: Experian, Equifax and TransUnion (formerly Callcredit). When you receive your files, you should use our "Credit rating repair" and "Identity recovery" documents, as appropriate, to fix your credit rating.

This document will allow the owner of a beneficial interest in property to transfer that interest to one or more people. A person has a beneficial interest in property if they are entitled to the benefit and enjoyment of that property. Property may be held by and in the name of one person on behalf of and for the benefit of another. The person holding the property has a legal interest in the property; the person for whose benefit the property is held has a beneficial interest in the property. The transfer may be by gift or for money. It can be used for any type of property, such as a house or flat, a bank account or a painting or car. Please note that this document can only be used in England & Wales and it cannot be used to deal with legal interests in property.