Angelina Xess is a young, successful corporate executive. After six years of service in a multi-national company in Bangalore, she received a promotion a month back and finally thought of materializing her plans to buy an apartment and bring her parents to live with her in Bangalore from their rented apartment in Kochi. She had no doubts about her getting a loan, because her salary was good, her papers were in order and Bank ABC seemed only too happy to give her a loan.

But just about a week later after she had submitted her application, she received a call from Bank ABC saying that her loan application had been rejected because her credit score was poor. Being a financially disciplined individual, Angelina was completely distraught and ran to her loan advisor who advised her to purchase her CIBIL report and score online to find out what was wrong.

On receiving her report, Angelina found that there had been a case of mistaken identity wherein the credit history of one Angelina Gnomes who had a major credit card default was showing under her records. All she had to do then was to raise a dispute with CIBIL. CIBIL resolved the dispute and updated her report within a thirty days of her raising the dispute. Angelina’s report is now clean and she is all set to re-apply for her home loan now.

The mistake Angelina made was not to have looked at her credit report before applying for a home loan. Ideally, she should have checked out her CIBIL report a year before applying for her loan which would have saved her a lot of trouble. If you want to apply for a mortgage, there is no way that you should neglect your CIBIL report and score. Make sure that you have made timely repayments on all your loan accounts and credit cards and all your other details are in order. All banks insist on a score of 750 plus on a total of 900 to even consider you for a mortgage.

Here are some tips that will help you maintain a good CIBIL score:

Do not be desperate for credit- Applying for too many credit cards or loans in a short period of time will have a negative bearing on your credit report.

Spend within your limits- Credit utilization is an important part of your credit handling assessment. Being perilously close to your card limits does not indicate well for you when you want to apply for a loan.

A good mix of credit- Improve your credit profile by having a mix of both secured and unsecured debts. Secured loans will include debt like home loans, loans against security, car loan, etc. Whereas, unsecured debt will include credit card outstanding, personal loan, etc. A healthy credit profile has a balanced mix of both secured and unsecured loans

Timely repayments- This is the most important parameter influencing your credit score. Ensure that you always pay your bills, EMIs and insurance payments on time. Keep enough provisions well ahead of time and make the best use of alerts.