credit ratings

My apologies if this has been covered before.  I did a quick skim and couldn't find anything.

When my husband moved to the US nearly five years ago to marry me, he told me he had never used credit much.  Actually, I got the impression that when he had used it, he had used it poorly.  And when he left the UK, he left the Housing Executive owing some back rent.

My credit rating in the US has always been very good - 720's plus.  My husband has established a good credit rating now in the US based off of mine.

If we were to return to the UK, is his poor credit rating going to haunt us?  Can the excellent US rating be converted somehow to a UK rating?

And yes - I realize we need to pay the Housing Executive what he owes them.  My understanding of resolving that matter is to get help from Citizens Advice Bureau in negotiating that one.

Unfortunately, your US credit rating will mean nothing in the UK.  Despite having excellent credit in the US, the 2 countries do not share this information so you as someone who has not lived in the UK will have no credit history in the UK. 

Hi Rebeccajo

Yes, as already stated, you'll have a zero credit rating for the UK at this stage. You'll need to start to build up credit once you are here. Have a good search on this section, there's actually quite a lot of posts and threads covering this subject and also good ideas on how to actually go about getting that credit rating started - first being getting a pre paid or pay as you go mobile or even paying up front a deposit for a contract phone and taking it from there, alongside perhaps getting a very low amount credit card with the bank you join - say a £250 limit to start with.

If you have an American Express credit card in the USA, they will let you transfer the card to the UK operation, that will instantly be a 'shot in the arm' for a UK credit reference agency to start giving you a score. This is done internally at AMEX, and if you keep your payments back to them regular and good each month as soon as you arrive/trnasfer the account, the quicker the UK agencies will start to increase your credit rating here.

Good luck!

Cheers, DtM! West London & Slough UK!

That is what i expected.  Thanks to you both though.  And especially to you Dennis for the tidbit about AmEx.