24th October 2017

MPs yesterday debated the e-petition raised by Plymouth father-of-two and roofer Jamie Pogson and signed by over 147,000 people which calls for paying rent on time to be recognised as evidence that mortgage re-payments can be met.

“Far too many young people are failing to get on the property ladder,” said MP Paul Scully, who led the debate.

“Our broken housing market is the greatest barrier to social mobility in the UK.”

During the 90-minute debate there was unusual cross-party support for the petition and, speaking on behalf of the government, Stephen Barclay – Economic Secretary at HM Treasury – said the government agreed that rental payment history should be one of the factors that lenders take on board when deciding whether to lend.

He also said there was “nothing in the mortgage regulations to stop lenders using rental payments”.

But one area of disagreement among the MPs was how to get lenders to add more rental payments to tenants’ credit files.

David Jones, Conservative MP for Clwyd West, said the best way to persuade more landlords to report tenants’ rental payments to the lender was either through rental standing orders, or through a dedicated government portal.

Sheraz Dar, CEO of CreditLadder, says he disagrees: “Many of the speakers spoke passionately about how better access to affordable finance should be achieved for tenants, and several remarked that a market-based tech solution was the best way to get tenants' rental payment added to their credit histories.

"We believe that they are right, and that alternatives which require government intervention or rely heavily on landlords to initiate rental payments being recorded won't work.

“CreditLadder’s partnership with Experian means we are the only organisation at the moment who can offer smaller portfolio landlords a way to include tenants’ rental payments onto their credit profiles and also involves the tenant in the process. Our service is free and doesn't rely on landlords to report the information.

“Like all these solutions, CreditLadder does add a layer to process, but the rental payment made to us by tenants are processed the same working day and the landlord follows the standard procedure for rent arrears.

“At CreditLadder we perform strict ID and tenancy checks to ensure data validity when reporting to Experian”

Want to know how Creditladder works? Read our FAQs

Remember, CreditLadder can help you improve your credit score.

CreditLadder can improve your credit position by reporting your rent payments. CreditLadder is the first way to improve your credit score and position across all three of the main Credit Reference Agencies in the UK, namely Experian, Equifax and TransUnion. Building up a high credit score has a lot of benefits, including helping you access finance at better rates - this can also help save you money. CreditLadder also runs a free mortgage application service in partnership with Tembo which will tell you how much you could borrow.

Remember the content provided in this article is for information purposes only and should not be considered as advice.