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From time to time, you may decide to combine your finances with those of another person and apply for credit jointly, such as purchasing a property. This creates a financial association between you and the other person. You may also include your spouse's name on a credit application and this will also create an association. The result is that a financial link to this person exists and will be shown on your credit report and will remain even after the account is settled or closed.

When you next apply for credit, information from both your credit reports may be searched and evaluated before the lender decides to grant you credit and this search will be included in the other person's report but may not affect their ability to receive credit.

There are occasions when individuals, who are not a permanent financial unit, join together to purchase or rent something over a short period of time. An example might be students renting a television or jointly purchasing a fridge. In these cases there is no permanent financial link and the association will be removed once the account is closed.

Note: You will not automatically be linked with individuals with the same surname living at your address.

Searches and Financial Links

Although you may be associated with a person you may ask to be considered as an individual. If you choose to do this, and the lender facilitates your request, you will be asked to confirm that you do not know about any problems with the other person's credit record that would affect the lender's decision to grant you credit. The lender will receive an alert if there are problems with the other person's information and does have the right to decline you for credit. This ensures that as financial unit you do not over commit yourselves.

Searches will show on your credit report as:

Opt In: your associate's information will be considered
Opt out: your associate's information will not be considered but an alert issued for any derogatory information found on their report
Joint: you and another person both applied for credit together and both of your credit reports will be reviewed
Transient Associate: your information and associates information will be used as long as the account linking you is open.

Removing Financial Links

You can remove an association if you no longer have any active financial links with that person. To check who you have financial associations with order your Credit Report by clicking here.

To ask Equifax to remove an association click here to contact Equifax.