Credit reports are made available to individuals and to creditors who profess to have a legitimate need for the information. The three major national credit bureaus are Equifax, Experian (formerly TRW) and Trans Union:
When you apply for a loan at a mortgage company, a credit agency will provide a mortgage credit report utilizing information from all three credit bureaus. If there are items being reported incorrectly on the credit report, the credit agency will update the mortgage credit report and provide a supplement to the lender which shows the corrected item. You should know that corrections made to your mortgage credit report will not be permanently updated with the credit bureaus. You will need to contact each bureau reporting the incorrect item and they will update it. Some lenders will offer an Express Dispute Service which allows the mortgage credit agency to submit documentation to one or all bureaus to permanently correct errors on your credit bureau reports. This process usually takes 48-72 hours and then you can re-pull new credit scores which should be better because the negative items have been corrected.