Right to Privacy

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Do Mortgagees have the right to provide Credit Agencies with details of borrowers Mortgages if they are in arrears (no Possession Orders)? The Abbey N. send details to Equifax such details can cause severe trading problems for small business people. Certainly older Mortgage agreements did not include a disclosure clause, what is the position?

-- M Balding (RONEDAC@aol.com), July 19, 2001

Answers

I would ask the Information Commissioner, formerly the Data Protection Commissioner, for a definitive ruling on this. See web site www.dpa.org

-- E Scott (eleanor.scott@btinternet.com), July 20, 2001.

Sorry but the answer is yes they can, and yes they do. In fact if you loan any money from any financial institution and get into arrears, it goes onto your credit file.

When credit scoring, however, arrears don't necessarily count for much unless they are significant.

Finally, once you pay the arrears, the fault doesn't disappear from your credit file although it will show that you are now up to date.

If you get your credit record from equifax or experian it explains this in more detail.

-- (bluemoon@mcfc.co.uk), July 21, 2001.


Lloyds Bank stated that to disclose details without authority was a breach of ones Common Law right to privacy! received after posting my question.

-- M Balding (RONEDAC@aol.com), July 22, 2001.

Yep that is also true, but I guarantee if you look at the small print of whatever you sign up to when you open a bank account or take a mortgage it will say something like 'we share and provide information with blah blah blah in order to protect blah blah from fraud etc etc'.

-- (bluemoon@mcfc.co.uk), July 26, 2001.

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