Credit Card Balance Transfer Discussion Area 2

Galstonian

Glastonian
RE:- reply 201
I phoned MBNA and no luck with them reconsidering.
She said I would have to wait 6 months and apply again.
Any ideas where else I could try?

Got your PM.

Its very difficult to say. From your other posts I think you have several new cards (Mint, Egg & Barclaycard all from March 04) which are all maxed out. That could show up as a lot of credit in one go and might scare off lenders who think you are merely adding to that total.

Do you have your credit reports from Equifax and Experian? Is all information present and correct? If not get that fixed then try.

If everything is correct then you are left with a choice. Continue to randomly select lenders to apply to or wait a while then apply. If you wait you have to decide how long for.

I personally would pay off the card from savings then wait. I know others might suggest different but the conservative approach while boring and less lucrative is safer. I don't know about your circumstances but would you for example risk potentially being turned down for a mortgage just to borrow at 0%.

On a practical note, if you have been turned down by any MBNA brand then you can probably eliminate all the others (MBNA, Virgin, A&L, abbey to name a few).

Hope this helps but the decision of what to do is ultimately yours.

thefirs

Saga have just opened (1 September) a six-month 0% offer on "convenience cheques" and BTs. Valid to 28 February 2005. This applies to existing holders as well as anything they are offering the new cardholder.

The offer does not yet appear on their website, but is shown on a flyer with the September bill.

Keanu

 I don't know about your circumstances but would you for example risk potentially being turned down for a mortgage just to borrow at 0%.

Glastonian,

you've worried me with this comment. I've been playing the BT game for about 6 months. I'm in the process of possibly looking for a mortgage at short notice. I was under the impression that basically if I found myself in the position that I wanted the mrotgage then I would repay all my credit card debt (about 8K so far, in process of possibly increasing) and then go for the mortgage once all the debts had been cleared . The mortgage companies would look at my complete bill of clean (financial) health and offer me the required mortgage.

From your comment I am now starting to think this is not the case??? You say potentially turned down, can you expand further??

Worried

Galstonian

Sorry, didn't mean to panic you but mortgages are like any other credit - if there is nothing out of the ordinary the application will sail through. As soon as anything "different" shows up alarm bells ring.

This will all depend on the lender and their underwriters - some might be happy with a simple letter of explanation, some might want to see statements, some may insist on you paying off debts and some might simply reject you out of hand - I don't know.

Whatever you do, I don't think you should have large amounts of unsecured debt and rely on an instant mortgage decision. Is there any reason you can't look for an agreement now and get any thorny questions dealt with before you need to borrow?

Keanu

Galstonian,

fair point,

although I don't think it would be worth all the efort of securing a mortgage offer at the moment (at the risk of overlapping content which should appear on other threads) as I'm waiting for someone to purchase a property (7 months and counting!) before I would be in the position of needing a mortgage for another.

My point would be that I was always intending to repay all the outstanding debt on the credit cards and then apply for a new mortgage. From your latest response are you suggesting that I may be able to keep the credit card debt by producing bank statements to show that, in effect, I have no debt? Or is this going to get bank managers asking questions that could compromise me? At the end of the day, as has been pointed out numerous times on this site, I'm doing nothing illegal by playing the BT game.


If you advise this could be a dodgy path to go down I just revert to my original plan to pay of all the debt at the appropriate time?

smartsaver

Hi Keanu
We remortaged last year with an apparent CC debt of 60,000. Britannia was the lender and we showed our bank saving accounts statements to prove we had the cash and said we would pay off the cards if required. Britannia were moer than happy with this and gave us our mortgage with no further questions asked! ;D

As has been said before, banks are aware a small proportion of people are 'credit card & savings tarts' but still give us cards.

This is my personal experience - I'm sure Gal will be able to offer a broader view. It may not be the same with all Morgage companies.

Galstonian

keanu, I sent you a private message.

I can state from recent experience that unsecured "debt" can affect a mortgage (or more specifically in my case remortgage) application. However, once the underwriters understood what was happening and had proof there was no problem. It does make the process a lot more time consuing though and I suspect different lenders might view things differently.

zcaprd7

Indeed - I wonder how the ofset/flexi mortgage providers would view it?

Keanu

Hi Keanu
We remortaged last year with      

Thanks for your incite Smartsaver,

noticed yours was a remortgage situation - I'll be going for a mortgage. Presume the principle is pretty much the same though. Just need to sell the house first!!!!

luv_my_brass

Capital one are advertizing a BT at 0% for 18 months. I have read through all the small print and can't seem to fault it - anyone else know about this? They do pay off your existing card debt rather than pay into your bank account, but having been down this road already, didn't find this to be much of a problem. I am tempted to replace my 2 current 9 month bts with this 18 month one (you have to apply before end of October) instead of waiting until it's time to do another bt around Dec/Jan. The min. monthly payment is 3% (Egg is only 2%) but when you don't actually owe anything - it all comes back to you in the end. ;-)