With the US credit crunch now making itself felt over on these shores, it's not surprising that more advice is coming out on how to avoid ending up with a bad credit score.

Such problems seem inevitable for some borrowers, especially in the light of recent interest rate rises and banks tightening their lending policies after the crunch, but they could still be avoided with some careful financial management.

So says CreditExpert.co.uk, which has advised that a credit report is crucial in ensuring that such problems are kept to a minimum.

"If a mortgage provider has imposed even a quarter of a percent rise, you could end up paying hundreds of pounds extra a month, which could push many into the red," commented Credit Expert managing director Jim Hodgkins.

"If your credit report shows that you are not keeping up with your current commitments, you become an unattractive proposition to lenders as they do not want to be responsible for lending you additional sums you may not be able to afford to repay," Mr Hodgkins added.

Last week both Halifax and Abbey raised their rates by as much as 0.2 per cent in some cases, meaning that the problem of bad credit is now very real for a lot of borrowers.

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