Who decides whether someone gets credit or not?
If you are refused credit then only the company that turned you down can tell you why this was. No-one has a right to demand credit and a lender is not compelled to extend credit. If such a situation was the case then lenders may be forced to extend credit to people even when they knew there was little hope of being repaid, and lenders could not possibly operate in this way. The other factor to consider is that lenders make their money from interest, and lenders may well prefer to lend to people that take out loans that are repaid over many years, running up lots of interest payments. Lenders do not always like to lend to people that pay back the full loan quickly. A mortgage is the best example of a loan that lenders find very profitable, where ten or twenty years or more of interest payments can easily double the actual amount that the lender extended. If a lender refuses to grant credit they do not have to give you exact reasons, but they should give you an idea. If they did a credit check through a credit agency then they must tell you the name of the agency. Similarly a landlord cannot be compelled to let his or her property to anyone, and a letting agency will also have some duty of care to a landlord to vet tenants and check references if they are charging for this service. A tenant credit check may form part of this process.