Written by Onur Arslan, lawyer at Arslan Advocaten. Registered in the legal practice areas register of the Netherlands Bar for employment law and personal injury. Last updated: 31 August 2026.

Can a BKR listing be removed?

Yes, but not just like that. A listing that is factually correct in principle remains until the statutory retention period has expired. Removal comes into play if the listing is incorrect, or if the credit provider’s interest in maintaining it does not outweigh your interest in having it removed.

That balancing of interests is the heart of almost every case. Not "is it true", but "is it still reasonable".

When a request stands a chance:

Situation	Chance
The listing is factually wrong	high
You were never warned about the listing	reasonable
The arrears were cleared a long time ago	depends on the circumstances
You can demonstrably not get housing because of the listing	counts in the balancing exercise
The listing is recent and the debt is still running	small

What you read above is not a points system. There is no threshold above which removal "must" follow. Every case is assessed on the circumstances as a whole, and that makes the substantiation more important than the story itself. Two people with an almost identical coding can get a different outcome, simply because one could show their detriment with documents and the other could not.

What exactly is the BKR, and who registers there?

The BKR — Bureau Krediet Registratie — maintains the Central Credit Information System in the Netherlands, which holds registered consumer credit. The BKR is a foundation, not a government body and not a regulator. It manages the register; the data themselves come from the affiliated credit providers, which the BKR calls its "business clients".

Affiliated parties are as a rule banks, finance companies, providers of consumer credit, credit card companies, providers of overdraft facilities, private lease companies and municipalities carrying out debt assistance. They are obliged to report agreements with a term of more than one month, as a rule for an amount of more than € 250 (for business credit, more than € 1,000). They must in principle make that report within 21 days of the event occurring.

The arrears period after which a report follows differs per type of credit:

Type of agreement	Arrears are reported after
Instalment credit, mortgage credit on other immovable property, debt restructuring loan, business credit	two months after the due date
Revolving credit	three months after the due date
Mortgage credit on an owner-occupied home	three full monthly instalments after the due date (in specific situations: three months after the due date)
Residual debt from a mortgage credit	three months after the due date
Operational car lease (private lease)	two months after the due date
Other financial obligations	four months, and more than € 250

Source: General Regulations CKI (July 2024 version), articles 11 to 26.

What is as a rule registered:

Type of credit	Explanation
Personal loan (instalment credit)	where the gross credit amount is more than € 250, including term and total amount
Revolving credit	where the credit limit is more than € 250; with the limit, not the amount drawn
Overdraft or credit limit on the payment account	as revolving credit, where the limit is more than € 250
Credit card with spread payment	where the credit limit is more than € 250
Mail order and catalogue credit	buy now pay later with a credit element, above € 250
Car finance	financial lease and the classic car loan, above € 250
Private lease of a car	as operational car lease, where the total amount is more than € 250 — see below
Phone contract with a handset costing more than € 250	the handset credit is registered
Mortgage on an owner-occupied home	in principle only negative payment experiences: arrears and/or a special code, and without the amount being stated. So a mortgage without arrears does not appear in it
Mortgage on other immovable property	with the amount and term, above € 250
Residual debt after the sale of the home	above € 250, with and without NHG (codes RH and RN)
Debt restructuring loan	above € 250 (code SK)
Debt assistance through the municipality	the municipal decision admitting you to the scheme (code SH)

What people often get wrong — and how it actually works:

What people often think	How it usually is
Phone contract without a handset	the contract itself does not; a handset costing more than more than € 250 that you pay for in instalments does
Private lease of a car	it does, in the BKR itself. If you take out a lease contract with a company affiliated to the Keurmerk Private Lease, that appears as credit in the CKI. Since 1 April 2022, 100 per cent of the total contract amount is registered; for older contracts it was 65 per cent
Student debt with DUO	not in the BKR, but lenders do ask about it
Rent arrears	in principle not
Tax debt	in principle not
Health insurance arrears	in principle not: payment arrears with an insurer are not reported in the CKI
Money borrowed from family or friends	not
Fines and debt collection	in principle not, unless they arise from registered credit

That distinction matters in practice. People whose mortgage application fails often think that "everything" is in the BKR, while the blockage sometimes comes from an entirely different direction: a student debt with DUO, a maintenance obligation or a debt the lender picks up from the bank statements itself. And the other way round: people often think a private lease stays outside the BKR, while it is precisely in it. So before you start a removal procedure, it is essential to establish that the BKR listing really is the obstacle.

How do I obtain my own BKR overview, and how do I read it?

You can view your own credit overview online free of charge at the BKR, via mijnkredietregistratie.nl. That is your right of access under article 15 GDPR: you may know what data have been recorded about you. You create an account once and identify yourself with iDIN — not with DigiD. If your bank does not support iDIN, you can send in the application form with a copy of your identity document and receive the overview by post. Viewing online is free; a certified credit overview costs € 17.50. The BKR deals with the request within the statutory periods of the GDPR.

What you get back is not a score and not a judgment. It is a factual overview. Four things are decisive for the assessment of your case:

1. Which contracts appear — type of credit, credit provider, contract number, original amount or limit.
2. The dates — the start date of the contract, the end date, and where there are arrears the date on which they were reported and the date of recovery.
3. The special codes — the A and H reports explained below.
4. Who placed it — because that party, and not the BKR, is your counterparty.

Read the dates carefully above all. The end date of the contract as a rule determines when the whole file disappears from view, and that date is often later than people assume. A recovery report on 1 March does not mean the listing expires on the following 1 March.

What else you can request. Alongside the overview itself you have in principle a right under privacy law to information about the origin of the data and to a copy of the underlying documents held by the credit provider: the credit agreement, the reminders, the correspondence and the evidence that you were warned in advance about the listing. That last document in particular is regularly missing in practice, and that is one of the strongest openings a case can have. The right of access rests on article 15 GDPR; in addition you have the right to rectification (article 16), to restriction of processing while your request is pending (article 18), to erasure (article 17) and to object (article 21). The General Regulations CKI work those rights out in articles 27 to 31 and oblige the credit provider to cooperate with the handling. The advance warning itself is not a courtesy without form requirements: the regulations prescribe that the credit provider must warn you in writing that non-payment will lead to an arrears report, and that it must be able to show that it was sent.

In practice: request your overview before you have an advice meeting. Without the overview, any conversation about your chances is speculation.

Why does the BKR not remove anything itself?

Because the BKR does not own the data, but manages them. The register is a conduit: the credit provider reports, the BKR stores and displays. Anyone who considers a listing incorrect or disproportionate must therefore go to the party that made the report. A letter to the BKR as a rule produces nothing but the message that you should turn to your credit provider.

That is not a formality but a substantive choice. Only the credit provider has the file: the agreement, the reminders, the payment history, the internal notes. Only that party can therefore assess whether the report is correct, and only that party can weigh up whether maintaining it is still proportionate in your case.

Party	Role	What you can achieve there
BKR	manages the register, provides your overview	access; in principle no substantive change
Credit provider	places, amends and removes the report	the actual removal request
Kifid	assesses the dispute with a credit provider falling under the Financial Supervision Act	a ruling where the request has been refused
Private Lease Disputes Committee	assesses disputes with lease companies affiliated to the Keurmerk Private Lease	the same, for private lease
Court	decides bindingly, including in summary proceedings	an order to remove
Dutch Data Protection Authority	supervises data processing; the regulations expressly name the Authority as a complaints body	supervision of the processing, not a route to getting your own listing removed

One nuance: if the listing is factually incorrect and the credit provider acknowledges that, the correction still runs through the BKR — but on the provider’s instruction. So you always send the letter to the provider.

How long does a BKR listing stay in place?

In principle five years after the end of the credit or the clearing of the arrears. So the period does not run from when the problem arose, but from when it was settled.

For many people that is the unpleasant part: anyone who only clears their arrears after two years is then stuck with the listing for another five.

An important detail: the period attaches to the agreement, not to the coding. Even after you have paid everything off and an H report appears, the whole file — including the old arrears — remains visible for another five years. That explains why people who have repaid impeccably still fail a mortgage application years later.

The start date, as the regulations lay it down:

What	When it disappears from the CKI
An ended agreement	five years after the actual end date of the agreement
Arrears and recovery report on an ended agreement	five years after the registration date of the recovery report, in so far as the arrears were registered before that recovery report
Arrears without a recovery report on an ended agreement	five years after the actual end date of the agreement
Recovery report on a current agreement	five years after the registration date of the recovery report
Arrears on a current agreement with a current recovery report	five years after the registration date of the recovery report
Arrears on a current agreement without a recovery report	is not automatically removed after five years, but is put to the credit provider for assessment
Special code	the same system: five years after the recovery report, or five years after the end date of the agreement
All data after death	one year after the death is reported

Note the sixth row. On a current agreement without a recovery report, the arrears do not lapse by themselves after five years: the regulations then put them to the credit provider again. So that is not automatic cleaning but a moment of assessment — and thereby also an opening for a request.

Source: General Regulations CKI (July 2024), article 14.

Read on: Does the listing stay in place once you have repaid?

What do the codes A, A2, A3 and H mean?

The letter says what is going on, the number says how far it has gone. An A means arrears have been reported. The number after it is a separate special code, indicating what measure the credit provider then took. So "A2" is not a code in its own right, but arrears plus code 2.

What you see	Meaning
A	arrears report: you are several instalments behind in repaying your credit and you have received an advance warning about this
A1	code 1 — payment arrangement: a repayment arrangement was made after arrears had arisen
A2	code 2 — calling in: the credit provider has demanded payment of the remainder or of the whole debt, in accordance with the applicable statutory requirements
A3	code 3 — write-off: the credit provider has written off or waived an amount of € 250 or more.
A4	code 4 — unreachable: the credit provider has sought contact with you, but you have been unreachable for a longer period
A5	code 5 — preventive payment arrangement: you and the lender have agreed in writing a preventive payment arrangement for mortgage credit of at least four months
H	recovery report: you have cleared a payment arrears, but your credit is still running

Two things that are often missed. There is also a code 5, which in practice is actually favourable: it goes with a preventive arrangement on a mortgage. And combinations of special codes are possible — so you can, for example, see both a 2 and a 3 on the same agreement.

With code 3 there is moreover a special rule: if the write-off goes together with full and final discharge — you no longer have to pay anything — the credit provider must at the same time report the end of the agreement. If that does not happen, that in itself is something to raise, because the retention period hangs on that end date.

Source: General Regulations CKI (July 2024), articles 12 and 13, and the BKR’s explanation on mijnkredietregistratie.nl.

If you have made an arrangement, read also what a BKR listing after a payment arrangement means.

The severity increases. An A1 shows that you complied with an arrangement and weighs considerably more lightly with a lender than an A2 or A3, where the relationship has effectively broken down. An A4 is often the most awkward, because it suggests that you made yourself unreachable — while in practice a house move or a wrong address is regularly behind it. That code is therefore relatively often challenged successfully.

By way of illustration. Someone moves house and forgets to give their new address to the provider of a small revolving credit. The reminders and the advance warning go to the old address; they never read them. Because there is no response and they turn out to be unreachable, a code 4 is added alongside the arrears — the report suggesting that someone made themselves unreachable. Legally it then turns on two things: did the required warning actually reach them, and can the credit provider show that it was sent? That makes the difference between a coding that is justified and one that at the very least deserves amendment to a lighter report. This is an illustrative example of the rule, not a case handled by our firm.

An H is not a clean slate. That is the most common misunderstanding. The recovery report shows that you have paid off, but the listing itself remains visible — including the original arrears.

→ *In depth: the A, A2, A3, A4 and H codings explained.*

Read on: What exactly do the negative codings mean?

Read on: BKR listing without a warning: can you have the listing removed?

What does the court weigh in the balancing of interests?

The key question is not whether the listing is correct, but whether the purpose of the listing in your case still outweighs the detriment you suffer from it. The purpose of the register is twofold: protecting credit providers against non-payment, and protecting consumers against over-lending. The older the listing, the more the debt has been settled and the more demonstrably your situation has changed, the less maintaining it contributes to that purpose — while your detriment stays the same or even grows.

That reasoning is the engine of every successful case. What is as a rule weighed in it:

Factor	What it turns on	What makes it strong
Nature and size of the debt	small arrears on a small credit weigh differently from a large write-off	making the relationship between amount and consequence concrete
Time elapsed	how long ago did the arrears arise, and how long ago were they cleared	dates from the overview itself, not from your memory
Have the arrears been cleared	fully repaid weighs more heavily than partly or written off	a discharge or final statement from the provider
Culpability	did the arrears arise through circumstances beyond your control	illness, dismissal, divorce, an employer’s insolvency, with documents
Conduct since	have you demonstrably behaved well since then	years of timely payments, no new reports
Current financial situation	does the risk the listing is meant to cover still exist	permanent employment, income data, savings, low outgoings
Concrete detriment	what can you demonstrably not do because of the listing	refusals on paper, not "I heard it cannot be done"
Warning in advance	were you warned before the report	the absence of this is an argument in its own right
The provider’s interest	what purpose does maintaining it still serve	forces the other party to give a substantive answer

The principle of proportionality. Behind this balancing exercise lies a more general principle from data protection law: data may not be processed for longer or more broadly than is necessary for the purpose. A removal request is therefore in practice also based on the GDPR — the right to erasure and the right to object to processing, where the controller must show that there are compelling legitimate grounds outweighing your interests. Concretely those are article 17 GDPR (the right to erasure) and article 21 GDPR (the right to object on grounds relating to your particular situation). The General Regulations CKI themselves refer to those in articles 30 and 30b, and the regulations also expressly acknowledge the balancing exercise: article 14(10) provides that a credit provider may remove a listing if it is unjustified, or if a justified listing "proves disproportionate after a careful balancing of interests on the basis of available information about individual circumstances", or on the basis of a ruling by a court or a competent disputes committee. That is a usable quotation for your letter: it is in the sector’s own regulations.

What to remember from this: it is not for you to prove that the listing must go. Once you have submitted a reasoned objection, part of the burden shifts to the credit provider to explain why maintaining it is still necessary in your particular case. A standard answer along the lines of "the listing is correct, so it stays" passes over that question — and that is precisely the point a court as a rule does want to see addressed.

By way of illustration. Someone lost their job years ago and as a result fell a few months behind on a personal loan. They cleared those arrears, the loan has been repaid and nothing has gone wrong since. Now they want to buy a house with their partner, and the application founders on what is still in the register. The question is then not whether the report was correct at the time — it was — but whether maintaining it still contributes today to the purpose of the register: protection against over-lending and non-payment. The more the debt has been settled and the more demonstrably different the situation is, the more lightly that purpose weighs and the more heavily their detriment. What then carries the balancing exercise is documents: the refusal on paper, the income data, the payment history. This is an illustrative example of the rule, not a case handled by our firm.

What you can supply yourself to steer the balancing exercise:

• refusal letters from lenders or a statement from your mortgage adviser expressly naming the listing as the reason;
• a purchase or tenancy agreement that is at risk of falling through because of the refusal;
• evidence of your current income and outgoings, showing that the situation of that time no longer exists;
• documents about the cause of the arrears: a dismissal letter, a period of illness, a divorce settlement;
• a payment history showing that you have met everything on time since;
• correspondence showing that the provider did not warn you, or did not warn you at the right address.

Will I get a mortgage with a BKR listing?

Usually not with an active arrears coding. Lenders consult the BKR as a matter of course. With a current A coding they as a rule refuse an application; after recovery it depends on the coding, the time elapsed and the lender’s policy.

That is why timing matters: anyone who wants a mortgage should have it assessed well in advance whether removal is possible. A procedure takes time.

What lenders do in practice. The BKR gives no advice and no score; the lender draws its own conclusion from what it sees. Roughly, the responses vary as follows:

What is on the overview	How a lender as a rule deals with it
Current credit without arrears	counts towards borrowing capacity, is not in itself a refusal
Active A coding, debt still running	as a rule refusal for as long as the arrears have not been cleared
A with an H report, recently cleared	case by case; with NHG an A or A1 with a recovery code is in fact permitted (see below), without NHG the lender sets its own policy
A2, A3 or A4 with an H report	weighed more heavily than an A1; case by case, often refusal even so
Listing expired or removed	no longer visible; the application is assessed on the ordinary grounds

How far back do they look? Only at what is in the register at that moment. If the listing disappears after the retention period, it is in principle no longer visible to the lender. There is, however, a second channel that people underestimate: the bank statements you supply with the application. From those an adviser can still work out that a repayment arrangement or a debt collection is running. So a removed listing is no guarantee of a clean application if the underlying situation is still visible.

National Mortgage Guarantee (NHG). For applications with NHG there are separate, written-out conditions about credit listings. Under the NHG Conditions and Standards 2026-1 (paragraph C.3.4, "Carry out a BKR check"), a lender may not offer a loan with NHG where there is a BKR listing with special code 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5, nor where there is a current debt assistance arrangement with code SK or SH.

With a coding of A or A1 it is allowed, provided one of these conditions is met:

• the loan has a recovery code (H); or
• it appears from the listing that the loan has been repaid, and not repaid by refinancing into a new current loan; or
• the lender has declared that there are no arrears any more or that the loan has been repaid, without refinancing of arrears into a new current loan.

In addition, NHG has exceptions for listings with a practical final repayment date after full and final discharge (among others HY 2, HY 3 and RN 3) and for a Wsnp scheme completed with a clean slate, provided at least one year has since passed.

That makes the recovery code concretely valuable for an NHG application — and at the same time it explains why a 2, 3 or 4 coding that stays in place in principle makes an NHG mortgage impossible for as long as it is there.

In practice: have your listing assessed before you make an offer on a house, not afterwards. A running purchase agreement with a financing condition of a few weeks is too short for a removal process.

Read on: What does a BKR listing mean for your mortgage application?

Where else do I notice such a listing?

A BKR listing does not only affect your mortgage: it comes back at every moment when a party wants to test your creditworthiness. How heavily that weighs differs considerably per sector.

Where you notice it	What as a rule happens
Car finance and financial lease	the provider checks with the BKR; an active coding as a rule leads to refusal
Private lease	the lease company checks with the BKR and also reports the contract itself as credit, provided it is affiliated to the Keurmerk Private Lease
Phone contract with a handset costing more than € 250	the handset credit is registered, and a check is made on application
Revolving credit or credit card	a new application is as a rule refused where there is an active coding
Rented housing through an agent or investor	some landlords ask you yourself for a credit overview. The BKR does not provide your data to landlords; so what you see is always an overview you requested and handed over yourself
Employer screening	in principle not standard practice; the BKR provides no data to employers
Applying for business credit as a self-employed person	a private listing can count in the assessment

What stands out in practice: the concrete detriment you have to substantiate in a removal request often comes precisely from this direction. A refusal for a lease car you need for your work, or a rented home you miss out on, is just as usable as a refused mortgage — provided you have it on paper.

How do I apply for removal?

First with the credit provider, then if necessary with the Kifid or the courts.

1. Request your listing from the BKR, so that you know exactly what is there.
2. Submit a reasoned request to the credit provider that placed the listing — not to the BKR itself. The BKR manages the register, but does not amend anything on its own initiative.
3. Substantiate the consequence. What can you demonstrably not do because of this listing?
4. If the provider refuses, a complaint to the Kifid or proceedings before the court remain.

Step 3 is where most requests founder: a request without substantiated detriment is a request with no weight.

What the letter should contain. A usable request is short but complete: which listing it concerns (contract number, dates, coding), what you are asking for (removal, or in the alternative amendment of the coding), on what ground, what concrete detriment you suffer, and which documents you enclose. Set a reasonable period for a response and ask for a reasoned decision — not for "a response". The latter makes a difference once the case goes further: a refusal without reasons is a weak document for the other party in proceedings.

What you should not do is dress the request up as a complaint about how things went at the time. Reproaches about the debt collection, the treatment or the interest charges distract from the only question that counts: does maintaining it today still outweigh your detriment.

Read on: How does it work after a debt restructuring or Wsnp?

Read on: BKR removal request refused: which next step do you choose?

How do proceedings at the Kifid work?

The BKR has no disputes committee of its own. Article 31 of the General Regulations CKI designates four addresses for a complaint about the processing of your data:

• the Kifid, in so far as it concerns credit providers falling under the Financial Supervision Act — that is the usual route;
• the Private Lease Disputes Committee, for lease companies affiliated to the Keurmerk Private Lease;
• the the municipality that made the listing under the Municipal Debt Assistance Act;
• the Dutch Data Protection Authority.

In addition, according to that same article, you can turn to the competent court. The Kifid is a written procedure, considerably cheaper and more accessible than the courts.

The course is broadly always the same:

1. You first complete the credit provider’s internal complaints procedure; that step is a condition of admissibility.
2. You file the complaint with the Kifid within one year of reporting the complaint to your service provider, or within three months of their refusal letter.
3. The other party is given the opportunity to reply; as a rule a written round of reply and rejoinder follows.
4. Sometimes a hearing or an attempt at mediation follows.
5. The ruling usually takes the form of a binding opinion: both parties are then bound by it. On the complaint form you indicate yourself whether you want a binding or non-binding opinion; the service provider makes that choice too. If the ruling is not binding, the route to the courts remains open.

Source: General Regulations CKI (July 2024) article 31, and the Kifid on complaint handling.

Advantages: low costs, no compulsory legal representation, and a substantive assessment of the balancing of interests. Disadvantage: it as a rule takes longer than summary proceedings, and that is precisely wrong where a mortgage application or a purchase agreement is under time pressure.

Read on: How the Kifid procedure works with an unjustified BKR listing

How do court proceedings work?

You then claim an order requiring the credit provider to (have) the listing removed or amended, often in summary proceedings because there is an urgent interest. That urgent interest is not hard to find in this kind of case: a running mortgage application, a purchase agreement with a financing deadline or a threatened refusal of a rented home makes it plausible that you cannot await the outcome of main proceedings.

What you concretely claim is as a rule a combination:

Claim	Why
Removal of the special coding	the actual objective
In the alternative: amendment of the coding	for example from A2 or A4 to a lighter report
In the alternative: removal of the whole contract	where the contract itself has been registered incorrectly
A period within which that must happen	otherwise implementation hangs in the air
A penalty payment	to enforce compliance
Costs of the proceedings	as a rule for the losing party

What you have to show: that the listing is incorrect, or that maintaining it is no longer proportionate in your case. That second track is the usual one, and it stands or falls with the documents from the balancing exercise above. Summary proceedings are a summary procedure: there is no room for extensive evidence, so what you do not have on paper straight away does not in practice count.

Note the downside. Summary proceedings produce an interim measure; the other party can in principle still start main proceedings. In practice that rarely happens in this type of case, but it is not a certainty. In addition the losing party as a rule bears the costs of the proceedings, which means that a poorly substantiated case costs you money twice over. Also allow for the court fee; the rates are indexed annually and depend on the nature and the value of the claim.

What does not work: the promise of guaranteed removal

There is no party that can guarantee removal of a BKR listing — anyone promising that is selling you something they cannot deliver. This is a market with many providers advertising "BKR listing gone, no cure no pay" for a fixed amount up front. An honest warning about this is in order, because anyone looking for this is by definition in trouble.

What to watch out for:

• "Guaranteed removed." Nobody can promise that. The decision lies with the credit provider, the disputes body or the court — not with your service provider.
• Payment up front, result later. Always ask exactly what happens for that amount, and what happens if the request is refused.
• "No cure no pay" with a high percentage. With a lawyer that arrangement is subject to strict rules; with non-lawyers it is not. Ask for the amount in euros, not for the percentage.
• No lawyer on the other side. Only a lawyer can represent you in proceedings before the court and is answerable in disciplinary law for what they promise.
• Standard letters. A request that does not address your circumstances and your detriment is as a rule refused as a matter of course by the credit provider. You then pay for a letter that takes the case no further.
• Ask for an honest no. A service provider who never tells you that your case is hopeless makes money from hopeless cases.

What decides a removal case is not the sender of the letter but the quality of the substantiation. Anyone who promises for a fee that the outcome is certain is leaving out precisely the balancing of interests — the only thing that matters legally.

Mistakes commonly made

Most requests founder not on the law, but on the approach. These are the mistakes we see most often in practice:

Mistake	Why it goes wrong
Knocking on the BKR’s door instead of the credit provider’s	the BKR changes nothing on its own initiative; you lose weeks
Waiting until the mortgage application is running	a process takes months, a financing condition weeks
Not substantiating the detriment with documents	"I cannot buy a house" without a refusal on paper carries hardly any weight
Thinking an H report closes the matter	the listing stays visible after recovery until the retention period expires
Ignoring the debt entirely first	current arrears make maintaining the listing in principle easy to defend
Running up new arrears during the process	undermines the argument that your situation has changed
Only complaining about the past	the balancing exercise is about today, not about how the debt collection went at the time
Using a standard letter from the internet	gets refused as a matter of course; you waste your best chance on the first round
Letting time limits expire	with the Kifid you must file within a year of your complaint to the service provider, or within three months of their refusal
Assuming the BKR is the problem	sometimes the blockage lies in a private lease, a student debt or the bank statements

Step-by-step plan and checklist

In order:

1. Request your BKR overview and read the dates and codings carefully.
2. Establish who placed the report — that is your counterparty.
3. Ask that party for the underlying file: the agreement, the reminders, and the evidence that you were warned in advance about the listing.
4. Make sure the arrears have been cleared or that there is an arrangement you have complied with, if that is still possible.
5. Gather evidence of your concrete detriment: refusals, a purchase agreement, a statement from your adviser.
6. Gather evidence of your current situation: income, outgoings, payment history.
7. Have it assessed whether a request stands a chance before you submit it.
8. Submit a reasoned request to the credit provider, with a reasonable period for a response.
9. If refused: choose deliberately between the Kifid (cheaper, slower) and the court (faster, more expensive).
10. Start in good time — count on months, not weeks.

Checklist for your file:

• [ ] BKR overview, recently requested
• [ ] Credit agreement and general terms and conditions
• [ ] Reminders and the advance warning of the listing
• [ ] Evidence of recovery: final statement, discharge or last payment
• [ ] Refusal letters from lenders, stating the reason
• [ ] Purchase or tenancy agreement with the associated deadline
• [ ] Evidence of the cause of the arrears (illness, dismissal, divorce)
• [ ] Recent income and outgoings data
• [ ] Payment history since recovery
• [ ] Correspondence with the credit provider about your earlier request

What does it cost and how long does it take?

The first assessment of your listing is free of charge with us. We look at your BKR overview and tell you whether a request stands a chance. Only then do we talk about costs — because submitting a hopeless request costs you money without a result, and we do not do that.

What it costs after that depends on how far the case goes. These are the stages, in order of increasing cost. You hear from us what a stage costs before we start it, never afterwards:

Stage	What happens
Assessment	we read your overview and your file
Request to the credit provider	a reasoned letter with substantiated detriment
Complaint to the Kifid	written procedure; the Kifid itself charges consumers no complaint fee
Proceedings before the court	summary or main proceedings

By far the most cases end in the second row. A well-substantiated request to the credit provider is often enough, and that is at once the cheapest route.

How long it takes:

Step	Time to completion
Requesting your listing from the BKR	a few days
Response from the credit provider	as a rule a few weeks
Kifid	the Kifid aims to deal with a complaint within twelve months; a ruling of the Disputes Committee usually follows within 90 days of the hearing
Summary proceedings	usually a few weeks to a ruling

So for the whole thing count on months rather than days. That is the reason not to wait until your mortgage application is running: start before you need it.

Do you qualify for state-funded legal aid? On a low income the Legal Aid Board may bear part of the costs; you then pay an own contribution. We assess that at the first assessment.

Have your listing assessed

Send us your BKR overview. We will tell you whether removal stands a chance and what is needed for it.

Offices in The Hague, Rotterdam, Amsterdam, Utrecht, Tilburg and Eindhoven.

This page gives general information and is not legal advice about your own case.