Credit, or more specifically your credit rating, is a numerical score that's determined based upon the reports of banks and other lenders who you have had a loan, account, credit line, or other form of financing with in the past.

Positive reports increase your credit rating (resulting in good credit), whereas negative reports reduce your credit rating (resulting in bad credit UK .) Of course, one or two negative reports won't cause you to have bad credit UK ? it takes time and specific actions on your part.

How credit goes bad

Bad credit UK is usually a direct result of your failure to make satisfactory payments on a loan, credit line, or other financing.

This may sound severe, but all that it really means is that you were either commonly or consistently late making payments or that you've defaulted on one or more debts (meaning that you didn't pay it.) Often times there are legitimate reasons for this? illness, unemployment, and legal matters such as lawsuits or divorce can all cause you to fall behind.

The good thing is that just because you have bad credit UK now doesn't mean that you have to have it in the future.

How to repair your credit

A variety of credit repair and credit counseling services have been surfacing in recent years, along with the usual scams and businesses that overcharge for the services that they perform. Instead of spending large amounts of money on these services, though, you might consider attempting to correct your bad credit UK yourself.

It will take time, and it may be a few years before you have good credit again, but utilizing credit repair services take time to recover your good credit rating as well.

Contact your creditors to arrange a repayment plan (making sure that you don't get in over your head).