When a credit reference agency refuses your notice of correction

A notice of correction is a short statement, up to 200 words, that you can add to your credit reference file to explain the circumstances behind an entry. It is free, and it is seen by anyone who looks at that entry. If a credit reference agency refuses to accept yours, you can ask it to look again, and if that fails you can take the complaint to the Information Commissioner's Office or, in some cases, the Financial Ombudsman Service.

The limit is set in law. The Consumer Credit Act 1974 says a notice of correction must not exceed 200 words¹. The three main agencies, Experian, Equifax and TransUnion, each keep their own file on you, so a notice added to one is not automatically added to the others².

What a notice does not do is change your credit score. It explains your situation, and it means any application for credit must be read by a person rather than decided automatically by a computer³. That is the point of it: it puts context in front of a human being.

What a notice of correction is and what it can say

A notice of correction lets you write a statement explaining your situation which will be seen by anyone who looks at the entry on your credit reference file, and it should be taken into consideration if you apply for credit⁷. It sits alongside the entry it explains, rather than replacing it.

The usual reasons for adding one are exceptional circumstances: redundancy, illness, a relationship breakdown, or a period of debt that has since been resolved. Debt advice services suggest asking the agency to add a notice if exceptional circumstances, like redundancy, led to your debt⁸. The notice does not dispute that the entry is accurate. It explains why it happened.

There is a separate version used in cases of fraud or coercion. A password notice of correction is a password added to your credit report to help prevent someone applying for credit in your name³. That is a different tool from the explanatory statement, and it is worth knowing the two exist so you ask for the right one.

If the entry itself is wrong, rather than simply unflattering, a notice is not the right route. You would raise a dispute instead, and the agency has to investigate with the original lender and correct or remove wrong data⁹. The two routes are compared on our page on notice of correction vs raising a dispute.

Asking the agency to review a refused notice

An agency can refuse a notice, most often because it exceeds 200 words, because it is abusive or inaccurate, or because it reads as a general complaint rather than an explanation of a specific entry. If yours is turned down, the first step is to ask the agency to look at it again, in writing, setting out why the wording meets the rules.

It helps to know what the agency can and cannot do. The Information Commissioner's Office says credit reference agencies cannot amend data on credit files provided by other companies without that company's permission¹⁰. So if your notice depends on a lender changing what it reported, the agency alone cannot deliver that. The notice route works best when the underlying entry is accurate and you are adding context.

If you were refused credit, you have a right to ask whether the finance company used a credit reference agency, and it must give you the agency's name and address¹¹. Under the Consumer Credit Act 1974, where a creditor decides not to proceed with a prospective regulated agreement on the basis of information from a credit reference agency, it must tell you that the decision was reached on that basis and provide the agency's particulars, including its name, address and telephone number¹¹. That tells you which file to correct.

If you were rejected because of your credit score, ask the loan company which credit reference agency it uses, then go to that agency directly to have wrong details corrected¹². Our page on what to do if you are refused credit covers the wider steps.

Complaining to the Information Commissioner's Office

If the agency will not budge, you can refer the matter to the Information Commissioner's Office under the Data Protection Act 2018¹³. The same escalation applies to a refused notice of disassociation, where you can ask the Information Commissioner for help². The Information Commissioner's Office is the UK's data protection regulator, and it handles complaints about how organisations, including credit reference agencies, have handled your personal data.

You can also contact the Information Commissioner's Office with your concerns if the issue is not resolved¹⁴. In practice this means setting out what you asked the agency to do, what it said, and why you think its handling breached your data rights. Our page on your data rights over your credit file explains the underlying rights.

The Information Commissioner's Office does not order an agency to add your notice, and it does not award you compensation. What it can do is investigate how your data has been handled and require the organisation to put things right. If your complaint is really about a lender's conduct rather than the agency's handling of your data, the Financial Ombudsman Service is the more likely route.

Sending your notice to Experian, Equifax and TransUnion

There are three main credit reference agencies in the UK: Experian, Equifax and TransUnion¹³. Each holds its own file, and each has to be asked separately. A notice added to one file does not appear on the others.

If you want the notice to appear everywhere a lender might look, you need to send it to each agency you want it on. The same applies to a notice of disassociation, where you contact one of the credit reference agencies to remove the link¹⁵. Our page on the UK credit reference agencies explains what each one holds.

How a notice changes the way an application is decided

If there is a notice of correction on your report, your application must be referred for a manual decision rather than decided by a computer alone³. That is the practical effect of adding one, and it is why a notice can slow an application down even though it does not change your score.

Only organisations that are actively checking your credit reference file will see the notice⁶. It is not published, and it is not shown to anyone who is not running a credit check on you. A notice of correction will not affect your credit score, but it may affect how quickly lenders deal with any new borrowing you apply for⁵.

Why a notice does not raise your score

A notice of correction will not affect your credit score⁵. It does not remove the entry it explains, and it does not change how the scoring model treats that entry. What it changes is how a human being reads your file.

That distinction matters when you are deciding whether to bother. If your aim is a higher score, a notice will not deliver it. If your aim is to stop an accurate but misleading entry being read without context, a notice is the tool for it. Our page on how to improve your credit score covers the routes that do move the number.

Changing or removing a notice later

A notice of correction can be added or removed at any time, and only organisations that check your credit reference file will see it¹⁶. Once the circumstances it describes have passed, you can ask the agency to take it off.

Credit reference agencies will not remove adverse information if it is correct, although consumers may ask to submit a notice of correction to explain the circumstances¹⁰. So the entry stays; the explanation is what you control. If you want the entry itself gone, you need the dispute route, and our page on how to correct wrong information on your credit report sets that out.

Taking a complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service

You have the right to complain to the Financial Ombudsman Service about how a credit reference agency has dealt with your credit file, following the agency's complaints process first⁶. If that does not resolve your complaint, you then have the right to complain to the Financial Ombudsman Service².

The ombudsman can ask a firm to correct a credit file, refund extra costs, and pay compensation for distress or inconvenience¹⁷. It cannot usually consider complaints about an accident management company for the service provided under a credit hire or repair agreement¹⁸, and complaints about firms not on the FCA Register should be referred to the Pensions Ombudsman¹⁹. Those limits are narrow and do not affect the ordinary credit file complaint.

Where the customer made the mistake, the ombudsman is unlikely to tell the lender to write off the money, but will encourage the lender to work with the customer to arrange a fair way to pay it back¹⁹. That is a useful signal about how it approaches credit file disputes generally: it looks at who caused the problem.

When the record itself is wrong

If the problem is not the wording of your notice but the accuracy of the entry, the notice route will not fix it. The route for wrong data is to dispute it directly with the credit reference agency that holds the data, which will investigate with the original lender and correct or remove wrong data⁹. The agency has 28 days from your request to tell you if it has removed the entry, amended it, or taken no action²⁰. By law the agency must tell you within 28 days of your letter if it has removed the entry from your file, amended the entry, or taken no action⁴.

It may take up to 30 days for a correction to appear, and timings differ depending on which agency you use to view your credit file¹⁶. Our page on how long a dispute takes and agency response deadlines sets out the timescales in more detail.

If a lender refuses you credit after checking your credit reference file, it must tell you why credit has been refused and give you the details of the credit reference agency it used²¹. That is your starting point for working out which file to correct. If you are in arrears or have a county court judgment, you may be refused credit²², and in that case the entry is accurate and a notice is the appropriate tool rather than a dispute.