Credit Building > How to remove a financial association from your credit report

How to remove a financial association from your credit report

Wollit Team2 minute read · Updated 19th September 2024

A financial association happens when you share a financial product, like a joint bank account or loan, with someone else. This can affect your credit score, so if you want to remove a financial association from your credit report, here is what you need to do.

What is a financial association?

A financial association is created when you share finances with another person. For example, if you have a joint bank account or a mortgage together, this creates an association.

Financial associations matter because when you apply for credit, lenders will see your associate on your credit report. Naturally, lenders may then look at the credit history of both people involved, and this can impact your ability to get loans or credit cards. Even if an association doesn’t directly hurt your score, it can still affect how lenders view you when applying for new credit.

If you no longer share finances with someone—like after a breakup or divorce—it’s smart to remove this association. Keeping it can hurt your credit score if the other person has bad credit.

How do I remove a financial association?

The first step is to close any joint accounts you have with the other person. This includes joint bank accounts, joint credit cards, mortgages, and any other shared financial products. Make sure all these accounts are closed before you move on to the next step.

After you’ve closed these accounts, gather proof that you did. You may need some documents to show that your financial relationship has changed. This could be a letter from your bank that the joint account is closed. In some cases legal documents, like a divorce agreement, can work too.

Next, you will need to reach out to the three main credit reference agencies in the UK: Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion. Go to their website and fill out a form asking for the disassociation. You’ll need to provide details about both you and the other person. If the financial association appears on reports from different agencies, you need to request removal from each one separately.

After you submit your request, it may take about 28 days for the credit agencies to process it. If you don’t see any changes after this time, follow up with them to check on your request.

Finally, once you think the disassociation has been processed, check your credit report again to make sure that the financial association has been removed. You can get a free copy of your credit here:

Experian: from the Experian website, if you sign up to their free trial.
Equifax: from ClearScore, for free.
TransUnion: from Credit Karma, also for free.

What else should I do?

After you’ve removed the financial association, the best next thing is to start rebuilding your credit history independent of your former associate.

Luckily, now there are many apps that can help you build and improve credit.

One such app is Wollit. Wollit is an app available both on Android and iOS, and it works by reporting a fixed-fee monthly subscription as a loan repayment to all three credit reference agencies.

This gives you a chance to continue building your own credit history and improve your credit score without the fear of financial associations and without having to be linked with someone else’s credit rating.