A credit report is divided in to four sections.

• Public records

This part of the report details your personal information like your social security number as well as your residence. It also includes public records related to your credit score and status. A public record is an entry obtained from federal, state, county or local court.

Public records that can appear on a credit report are tax lien, judgments and bankruptcy. Public records remain on your credit report for up to seven years. However, some like bankruptcy stay on your credit report for 10 years.

Not all public records make it to the credit report. Some records like divorces, property tax records, criminal suits and other records that don’t affect your credit score are not included in the report.

• Account history

This section of a credit details out information about individuals’ credit accounts and how they have settled them. The account history information is comprehensively detailed and it is crucial that you go through it for authentication.

Every credit account contains numerous pieces of information as follows:

1. The name of the creditor filing the information.
2. The type of account.

• The account number. It may be shortened for privacy reasons.

1. The responsibility status of the account detailing whether it is a joint or individual user account.
2. The monthly payment details.
3. The date the account was opened.

• The last date the account information was updated.
•       The amount owed by the account.

1. The credit limit.
2. Amount past due.
3. Creditors recommendations.

• The status of payment.
• Payment history detailing the monthly instalments paid since the account was credited.

• Credit score

This essential part of the credit report details the result of evaluation of information provided on your accounts, inquiries and public records. This evaluation is considered by your creditors to forecast your ability to settle loan or debt in the future.

The section at the top of this part details your credit score displayed with the equivalent credit risk score as well as the score rank.

• Enquiries

This section provides detail of the lenders who have enquired about you regarding your credit score. The information is presented in four columns; the lender’s name, the purpose, date and amount enquired.

Enquiries by lenders are categorized in either soft enquiries or hard enquiries. An enquiry is considered hard when the lender makes too many enquiries in a short period of time. It has a negative effect on your credit score.