Mortgage lenders typically look at your middle score as your qualifying score. there are some lenders that will take the high score into consideration as well. But as a general rule when applying for a mortgage always give the mortgage broker your middle score if you know it.

Usually a lender will use the middle of the three scores to qualify a borrower and to chose rate.

One creditor may report to only to bureaus A and B, another creditor may report to bureaus B and C, and yet another creditor may only report to bureau B. For this reason, the exact information that each of the credit bureaus has on file about you varies, and therefore so does your score with each bureau.

You have three different scores because each bureau has a different system for placing a numerical value on your credit quality. Another reason these scores can vary so much is that some creditors only report to certain bureaus and therefore the other bureaus may not be scoring that particular credit file which can cause a difference in actual scoring.

There are nonconforming lenders that will use average your scores or even use the highest score. Your mortgage professional's job is to place you with the lender that would be most advantageous to you.

The information that the credit bureaus have on file about you is provided by the creditors who you currently have credit with, as well as the ones you've dealt with in the past several years.

When disputing incorrect information on your credit report, be sure to write to all three credit repositories. If only one is notified of the erroneous item, your scores from the other two bureaus would not improve.