How to improve your credit rating after a DRO

A Debt Relief Order (DRO) will be shown on your credit record for six years. This article looks at what should happen, how to correct any problems, and how to start to improve your credit rating when the twelve months of your DRO ends and your debts are wiped out.

Even if you never want to be in debt again, a good credit score makes it easier to get a tenancy agreement, get a mobile contract and it’s essential if you ever want a mortgage.

How a DRO should be recorded

To make sure you don’t miss any problems, check your credit records with all the Credit Reference Agencies. there are links in that article to free ways to do this.

This is what should be showing at each stage:

After your DRO is approved:

The DRO will show in the Public Record section of your credit record.

All debts which are in your DRO should have a default date which is the date your DRO started or earlier.

There will be no change for any debts which do not form part of your DRO, but these (things like student debts and magistrates court fines) do not normally show on your credit record at all.

At the end of the 12 months of your DRO:

You don’t get sent a certificate when your DRO completes, see What happens at the end of my DRO? for details. As that says, it is good if you can print off your Insolvency Register entry when your DRO finishes – this will disappear three months later.

Your credit record will be updated to say your DRO has completed. The DRO marker will remain on your record for five more years, dropping off six years after the start of your DRO.

You no longer owe the debts that were listed in your DRO.

These debts should be marked by the creditors “to show that you no longer owe money on that account (perhaps by marking the entry as ‘partially satisfied’ or ‘partially settled’ or in some other way)”  (quote from the Information Commissioner’s Office) and the balance on the accounts should show as zero.

CCJs won’t change, because there is no way to mark them as partially settled.

At the end of six years:

The DRO marker will drop off your credit record.

Some of the DRO debts may already have disappeared and the rest should go at the same time as the DRO marker, because their default date should be on or before the date your DRO started.

CCJs drop off six years from the judgment date, so they should already have dropped off by this six-year point.

So now your credit record should be completely clean – unless you have had credit problems after your DRO finished.

The only creditors that will be able to tell you had a DRO after the six-year point are those who had a debt included in your DRO – they may still be able to see the DRO on their internal records.

Correcting problems

There are two sorts of common problems.

1) a default date is after your DRO started

If the default date is later (or not there at all!) it will delay the point at which your credit file becomes clear. You can ask the creditor to correct the record.

Don’t ask the credit reference agencies – they just report what the creditors tell them.

It can take a while for creditors to add these defaults. I suggest you wait four or five months after the start of your DRO before you bother to do this – by that time most, if not all, should be right and you may only have one or two to deal with.

Don’t try to do this on the phone. Write the following letter to the Data Controller for the creditor (get the address from the ICO ), send it Recorded Delivery and keep a copy:

If the creditor replies saying they don’t know anything about your DRO, talk to the DRO Unit about whether the creditor has been informed.

If the creditor knows about your DRO but refuses to add or correct the default date, complain to the ICO. Attach copies of your letter to the creditor, proof of posting and any reply from the creditor.

One exception – mortgage shortfall debts are unusual in a DRO but if you have one, read How to repair your credit record after bankruptcy which covers these debts.

2) Creditor doesn’t mark debt as satisfied when your DRO has finished

The creditor doesn’t have to mark the debt as fully settled/satisfied so there is no point in complaining if the debt has been marked as partially settled/satisfied.

If the debt isn’t showing as closed with a zero balance four months after your DRO has finished, send the following letter to the data controller for the creditor:

Again, complain to the ICO if a creditor doesn’t correct the entry.

Is it worth doing this?

Yes. It is worth correcting the dates of default unless they are just a bit late. If these are months or even years late, this will delay the time until your credit file is finally clean as these debts will still be showing when your DRO itself has disappeared.

It’s a long while – five years or more – until a debt in your DRO will drop off your credit record completely, so it’s a good idea to get them all correctly marked to show that you no longer owe any money.  This doesn’t change your credit score, but it may mean that you are more likely to be able to get credit, probably from a “bad credit lender”.

Having the debt marked as settled also stops the irritation of the debt being ‘sold on’ to another Debt Collector. That isn’t a serious problem – the debt really has been written off – but it is annoying as you have to correspond with yet another person and send them details of your DRO.

Getting positive markers on your credit file

Once your DRO has ended, it’s good to start getting some new, positive credit marks on your credit record.

Get a “bad credit” card

First deal with the “clean up” process outlined above for your old debts. And make sure that you are on the electoral roll, your address and any other details are all correct with the credit reference agencies. This may take several months to complete if you have to go to the ICO.

Then apply for a Vanquis or a Luma credit card.  Vanquis is owned by Provident, Luma is owned by Capital One – if you had a debt to one of these companies in your DRO apply to the other one to maximise your chance of being accepted. If your application is rejected, double-check your credit file really is clean with all three credit reference agencies, wait a few months, then apply for the other card.

These cards charge very high rates of interest.  This doesn’t matter because you should aim to repay it in full every month, so you never pay any!

The best thing is to use it once a month for something small such as a tank of petrol and set up the card to be repaid in full automatically every month so you can never forget and pay late.

Your credit rating will not improve faster if you leave a balance on this card. Your credit score gets a boost if you have no balance on the account because you are paying it in full.

At some point, you will probably want to be able to get affordable credit to spread the cost of a purchase. This is a good time to prepare for that by getting a savings account with your local credit union.

Can you save regularly?

If you can, then read up about LOQBOX. This is a clever new product that lets you save each month for a year and reports this to the credit reference agencies as loan repayments – so your credit score will benefit as you have taken out a year-long loan and repaid it. There are no fees. At the end of the year, you will have a nest egg saved up and a better credit score.

This all takes time

If you were expecting the end of your DRO to make a large, immediate improvement to your credit score, it doesn’t.

Getting a bad credit card or saving through LOQBOX isn’t going to magically increase your score to good. But when the DRO and all the debts in it disappear, having these positive markers then will mean that your credit score is looking good, not just empty.

Never pay any firms offering a ‘repair your credit’ service because either they don’t work at all, or they will be only suggesting what I have said here – there are no shortcuts. The template letters here are very likely to work and if they don’t, putting in a complaint to the ICO is the best way to repair your credit.

The problems with “bad credit” cards

Amigo – not a good way to rebuild credit score

What happens at the end of a DRO?