As of 14 February, civil court filings will no longer appear on people’s credit files giving thousands of Australian’s credit scores an instant boost.
The change will allow people to get credit where previously they were rejected or negotiate lower interest rates, according to leading consumer and financial law firm MyCRA Lawyers.
MyCRA lawyers chief executive Graham Doessel said mortgage brokers had been frustrated for years as clients had their bank funding cut off or rejected because of trivial and vexatious civil court actions that judged them guilty till proven innocent.
“We started campaigning to the Price Waterhouse Coopers three-year review of the Credit Reporting Code in 2017 to have this detrimental and harmful misreading of rules changed,” Mr Doessel said.
“Now only judgements can be recorded on someone’s credit file and those judgements must relate to ‘credit’ to impact someone’s credit rating” he said.
“I recommend everyone check there credit file at www.freecreditrating.com.au and if you see your civil court listing has been removed then contact your bank and ask for an interest rate cut,” Mr Doessel said.
“The credit reporting system still isn’t perfect, with people able to besmirch someone’s credit file simply by making credit inquiries in that person’s name via the internet with just a few personal details, but we are now headed in the right direction.
“The logic applies to both, simply commencing proceedings proves nothing, and this legal change needs to apply across all credit files.”
The new requirements are retrospective so people with a civil court default on their file that isn’t the result of a judgement and isn’t credit related will have them removed.
Have you checked your credit rating since the changes went through last week? Did you notice a change?
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