To list you on a defaulters’ file, your creditor must meet five legal requirements. One failure is enough to give you the right to be removed. And they fail more often than people imagine, because almost nobody checks.
General information. A court claim for infringement of honour requires a qualified lawyer.
ASNEF (run by Equifax) and Badexcug (by Experian) are private files recording missed payments. The Bank of Spain’s CIRBE, by contrast, records all your debt, whether or not you pay it well. Appearing on the CIRBE is normal; appearing on ASNEF closes doors: refused credit, lost tenancies, rejected phone contracts.
The debt must be certain, due and enforceable. A disputed, miscalculated or not-yet-due amount cannot be listed.
It must not be under challenge by you. If you have contested the debt in court, before an authority, or through an alternative dispute resolution procedure, listing is not allowed. This is the most frequently breached requirement.
You must have been informed beforehand: in the contract or when payment was demanded, warning you that you could be listed. Without that prior notice, the listing does not stand.
Five years maximum, counted from when the obligation fell due. After that, the record must go, even if the debt remains unpaid.
They must notify you of the listing within thirty days, and during that time the data stays blocked. If that letter never reached you, you have an argument.
Moreover, only someone holding a contractual relationship with you involving payment, or whom you have approached, may consult your record. And if you dispute the debt, the file must report that a controversy exists, without releasing the data, until it is resolved.
And if your situation is one of general insolvency, the way out is not file by file: after the discharge of debt, cleaning up these registers is part of closing the case. Fresh-start insolvency law
Updated daily from official sources (BOE, ministries and public bodies).
To list someone on a defaulters' file the debt must be certain, due and enforceable; it must not be under challenge by the debtor in court, before an authority or through alternative dispute resolution; prior information must have been given; five years must not have passed since it fell due; and the listing must be notified within thirty days, with the data blocked meanwhile.
Exercising rights before credit files is not charged for, not even through a representative. The reply deadline is one month, extendable in complex cases. ASNEF and Badexcug are separate companies and do not share data: each must be consulted separately.
