Do you know your credit rating? It’s checked by companies who want to lend you money. Lending isn't just mortgages and loans, it can be things like:

• phone contracts
• car insurance
• getting an overdraft.

There are some surprising things credit agencies don’t know about you including your:

What do they know?

Credit ratings agencies actually have relatively little information beyond your past borrowing performance.

If you fail to make payments you are expected to make or exceed your agreed limit this will be marked negatively on your account. If this behaviour continues for a long period of time it will get more harshly scored.

Once information is on your credit file it stays there for 6 years. The longer ago it was the less impact it will have on your rating.

You should check your credit report regularly. There are three agencies that record your credit history: CallCredit, Equifax and Experian.

What is my score?

You used to have to pay to access your credit score but now you can get the score held by all three agencies for free:

• Noddle (Callcredit) - score out of 710
• Clearscore (Equifax) - score out of 700
• Experian - score out of 999.

Unless it was a mistake you cannot change the credit history, but by checking regularly you can identify issues early and try to prevent them creating a bigger problem.

What if I have a bad credit rating?

The current top 85% LTV (15% deposit) 2 year fixed mortgage is 1.54% interest with £954 fees.

A 'bad credit' lender like Kensington charges 3.79% interest with £1,299 fees.

For a £250,000 house over 25 years that’s an extra £243 per month. With higher fees and lower capital repayments the bad credit mortgage would cost almost £10,000 more over 2 years.

A bad credit score can have a huge impact in your finances further down the line. You cannot change history but you can take charge of your credit rating now so when you need it you have access to the best deals.

I'll be providing tips to improve your credit rating in future articles so make sure you like and follow us below for more deal updates and ways to save money.