Immigrating to the UK

[AchmatK]

A friend of mine is over there and said the easiest one is to get a sim card only contract from the network Three. The credit check was supposed to be more relaxed than other networks and much easier than a contract with a phone included .

We went to Carphone Warehouse - they can check all the networks to see who gives you a deal. But yeah, get used to the "not here for 3 years yet, sorry" nonsense. It's their standard response because of the UK being a money laundering hotspot apparently.

Tried both of their websites last night and can't go past the 3 year address requirement as they don't accept a South African address. Did you use their online portal or physical stores?

 

[The Voice]

Tried both of their websites last night and can't go past the 3 year address requirement as they don't accept a South African address. Did you use their online portal or physical stores?

Went into a store.

My wife had been here for 6 months already, so she applied first, and got approved on O2. They checked for a second contract/phone for me on her name, but it was declined, so they tried Vodafone, and it was accepted. Was odd, because I gave them my bank account details for the debit order. A month later, once the dust had settled, I transferred it into my name.

 

[AchmatK]

Went into a store.

My wife had been here for 6 months already, so she applied first, and got approved on O2. They checked for a second contract/phone for me on her name, but it was declined, so they tried Vodafone, and it was accepted. Was odd, because I gave them my bank account details for the debit order. A month later, once the dust had settled, I transferred it into my name.

Thanks. I will ask my wife to find a store and see if she can apply in person. She's currently with O2 on their £10 prepaid deal and had the number active since November 2018.

 

[millennia]

Just be careful, it doesn't work the same way as SA. I've heard from multiple people about mortgage applications being affected because they recently applied for a mobile contract. Yeah, weird i know. It's something to do with multiple credit applications in a short period showing that you don't have enough funds to manage your debt

Get a credit card, use it and then repay monthly. It works wonders.

I actually did a credit check last night. 621/710. Not bad considering i had zero 18 months ago.

 

[Vox Populi Vox Dei]

Thanks for this. We will try them. Tried Vodafone and O2 sim only contact at £11 per month and was declined on both.

My brother was in the UK for about four years but emigrated to Australia for 6 months then came to SA for 6 months then returned to the UK. Even though he had kept his UK account and all, he had to wait 3 or 6 months to get a contract so yeah it is tough. Unfortunately it might just simply be a waiting game. At least the prepaid deals are very decent over there.

 

[AchmatK]

5 minutes in the Chelmsford O2 store and the sim only contract of £11 was completed. Was easier than she thought. She did not even have to provide any form of identification or Passport. She only gave her banking details and their in store credit check approved the application. They couldn't explain why we could not get it right online.

 

[AchmatK]

We also decided to use a credit builder service. We decided to use loqbox.co.uk.

Basically you sign a credit agreement with them where they will loan you a fixed amount determined by yourself from £240 to £2400 repayable over 12 months. They don't actually give you the money but you commit to paying them the fixed monthly amount and they will then report the payments to the credit bureau as if you were paying off a loan. At the end of the term you get your cash that you saved with them. We chose their maximum amount and will be contributing £200 per month to our loqbox account with the first payment going off on 26 July.

Only wish that we had known all these issues regarding building up a UK credit record before the time. I could have had most of this in place months ago already. Hopefully others can learn from this and can be better prepared.

Basics for getting your credit record started.

Register on the voters roll if eligible.
Sign up for a cellphone contract. We went with O2 on a £11 per month sim only 12 month contract.
Sign up for a credit builder product like loqbox(free) or a prepaid credit card(monthly fees might apply).
Utilities in your name also gets reported to the credit bureau.

Create an account on clear score, transunion and experian uk to check your credit score.

 

[shadow_man]

We also decided to use a credit builder service. We decided to use loqbox.co.uk.

Basically you sign a credit agreement with them where they will loan you a fixed amount determined by yourself from £240 to £2400 repayable over 12 months. They don't actually give you the money but you commit to paying them the fixed monthly amount and they will then report the payments to the credit bureau as if you were paying off a loan. At the end of the term you get your cash that you saved with them. We chose their maximum amount and will be contributing £200 per month to our loqbox account with the first payment going off on 26 July.

Only wish that we had known all these issues regarding building up a UK credit record before the time. I could have had most of this in place months ago already. Hopefully others can learn from this and can be better prepared.

Basics for getting your credit record started.

Register on the voters roll if eligible.
Sign up for a cellphone contract. We went with O2 on a £11 per month sim only 12 month contract.
Sign up for a credit builder product like loqbox(free) or a prepaid credit card(monthly fees might apply).
Utilities in your name also gets reported to the credit bureau.

Create an account on clear score, transunion and experian uk to check your credit score.

Very interesting, thanks.

As a dual citizen who's never lived in the UK, this is good to know.

I've opened some UK bank accounts (monzo and n26), but perhaps I should try and do the voters roll / loqbox to generate some credit record.

 

[AchmatK]

Very interesting, thanks.

As a dual citizen who's never lived in the UK, this is good to know.

I've opened some UK bank accounts (monzo and n26), but perhaps I should try and do the voters roll / loqbox to generate some credit record.

Similar to my wife's situation as she left the UK when she was 4 and had never been back till now and therefore has no UK credit history. She also opened an account with Monzo as her main bank account.

If you are in the UK I would suggest that you register on the voters roll. It's done on the gov.co.uk website. I had to do it twice for my wife as the first time she did not have a national insurance number and wanted her to come in to the local office to verify her identity. She didn't have time to do this. When she received her National Insurance number I applied again and received a letter a week later informing her that it was approved and that her name will be included on the voters roll on 1 August. We also chose to have her name included in the public voters roll as you can choose to have it not listed. If you want the credit bureaus to find you on the voters roll then you need to make sure its included in the public roll.

 

[RVQ]

....
Register on the voters roll if eligible.
Sign up for a cellphone contract. We went with O2 on a £11 per month sim only 12 month contract.
Sign up for a credit builder product like loqbox(free) or a prepaid credit card(monthly fees might apply).
Utilities in your name also gets reported to the credit bureau.

Create an account on clear score, transunion and experian uk to check your credit score.

Seems like I have most covered:
Signed up and only use Credit Card
Signed up for cellphone contract (Had no issues signing up at 3 with no credit record)
Signed up as voter (quick and easy online process also for Commonwealth citizens over 18)
Council Tax, Water and Elec bills in my name

This is the first I've heard of loqbox, have to check this one out.

 

[AchmatK]

Seems like I have most covered:
Signed up and only use Credit Card
Signed up for cellphone contract (Had no issues signing up at 3 with no credit record)
Signed up as voter (quick and easy online process also for Commonwealth citizens over 18)
Council Tax, Water and Elec bills in my name

This is the first I've heard of loqbox, have to check this one out.

I came across loqbox on the clearscore website as a recommendation to improve or build your credit profile.

 

[RVQ]

How are you guys moving money from SA to the UK, are you using traditional bank to bank transfer or Revolut/N26 or CurrencyFair,...

The pound is taking a beating so I'm thinking this would be a good time to transfer a large chunk of my money from SA

 

[AchmatK]

How are you guys moving money from SA to the UK, are you using traditional bank to bank transfer or Revolut/N26 or CurrencyFair,...

The pound is taking a beating so I'm thinking this would be a good time to transfer a large chunk of my money from SA

I was using my FNB global account but that was only to get my wife setup there and pay her first month's rent. I think we loaded about £2k to the global account and then did a global payment to her uk back account and for her to draw some cash that side.

We stopped using the global account for now but will look at our options when we need to transfer about R300k later this year.

 

[jman]

Hmm, was in the UK for a couple days about a week ago. It's great how things just work. Having thoughts of making the move over, though I recently just bought a flat in SA. Maybe in a year or two

 

[Mephisto_Helix]

The efficiency is overwhelming at times because you're just not used to it I woke up this morning and someone was getting their Asda delivery with another neighbor getting a washing machine delivered ...... 8am on a Sunday morning.

 

[The Voice]

Similar to my wife's situation as she left the UK when she was 4 and had never been back till now and therefore has no UK credit history. She also opened an account with Monzo as her main bank account.

If you are in the UK I would suggest that you register on the voters roll. It's done on the gov.co.uk website. I had to do it twice for my wife as the first time she did not have a national insurance number and wanted her to come in to the local office to verify her identity. She didn't have time to do this. When she received her National Insurance number I applied again and received a letter a week later informing her that it was approved and that her name will be included on the voters roll on 1 August. We also chose to have her name included in the public voters roll as you can choose to have it not listed. If you want the credit bureaus to find you on the voters roll then you need to make sure its included in the public roll.

Re: the electoral register, that's incorrect - you don't have to set it to public (official term is "open" register). As the name implies, it means that anyone can access your information if they want to - but it's mostly used by marketers to send you crap in the post. There's no real need to ever be on there, as you automatically go on the full register when you sign up - which is used by the credit bureaus, etc.

https://www.gov.uk/electoral-register/opt-out-of-the-open-register

 

[AchmatK]

Re: the electoral register, that's incorrect - you don't have to set it to public (official term is "open" register). As the name implies, it means that anyone can access your information if they want to - but it's mostly used by marketers to send you crap in the post. There's no real need to ever be on there, as you automatically go on the full register when you sign up - which is used by the credit bureaus, etc.

https://www.gov.uk/electoral-register/opt-out-of-the-open-register

Thanks. Didn't read that section when I registered her.

 

[The Voice]

Thanks. Didn't read that section when I registered her.

No worries. To be fair, it's not commonly known it seems. I like to think of it as a spam filter.

Also, once you're set up you can sign up for free at noddle.co.uk - they were bought out by someone else recently, but the domain automatically redirects to the new one. It lists all your credit data, and gives you a score. Shows all your credit agreements, address history, electoral roll info, credit checks against your name, etc. Equifax, et al, give you one month free, only.

 

[maumau]

Great info here guys. Keep it coming.

 

[The Voice]

The efficiency is overwhelming at times because you're just not used to it I woke up this morning and someone was getting their Asda delivery with another neighbor getting a washing machine delivered ...... 8am on a Sunday morning.

There was a pothole that appeared on a busy road close to our house after some heavy rain. My wife rang the council on the way home one day to report it - it was fixed two days later.