Your credit score is quite fluid and can increase or decrease as a result of changes to your report.
It might be worth looking through the 'What has changed' and ‘Insights’ section of your report to see what might have caused your score to drop.
That said, below are some factors that can affect your credit score:
- Missed Payments- Missing payments can cause your score to fall as it throws doubt on your ability to pay off future debt.
- Court Judgements- If you’ve been issued a court judgment, it means that you’ve failed to pay back money you owe and the lender has gone to the courts to order you to pay it back, this could lower your credit score as you might seem less likely to repay credit on time.
- Bankruptcy actions- Declaring yourself bankrupt is an option you can take to clear your debts when you’re really struggling. If you’ve declared yourself bankrupt, this will unfortunately affect your score and your ability to obtain credit.
- Open account with debt collection agencies- Lenders may assume you’re going through financial difficulties and therefore you may appear high risk
- Enquiries- An enquiry shows up on your credit report when a lender checks your file. This is a background check carried out when you apply for credit, or sometimes when you apply for a new job or you are renting - this is perfectly normal. However, try to avoid having too many enquiries on your report in a short amount of time. This can lower your score as it suggests you’re reliant on credit and might struggle to pay it all back.