How much credit can you have?

Matt123

Hi, I am about to apply for a new card to do some balance transfer, so hoping someone could give me some feedback on my report as I don't want to get a rejection. I've checked on Experian my report shows:

1 missed payment on a CC (missed a £5 payment while on holiday).
10 credit accounts,
14 searches in last year, 0 in last 3 months.
9k available credit
15k of debt,
160k mortgage,
using 62% of available credit.

I'm hoping to get a Tesco CC to balance transfer my 0% HSBC and Virgin cards where I am stoozing 14K, anyone have an idea if this kind of amount will be possible?

Thanks

Mr._H_2

Matt123 wrote: »

Hi, I am about to apply for a new card to do some balance transfer, so hoping someone could give me some feedback on my report as I don't want to get a rejection. I've checked on Experian my report shows:

1 missed payment on a CC (missed a £5 payment while on holiday).
10 credit accounts,
14 searches in last year, 0 in last 3 months.
9k available credit
15k of debt,
160k mortgage,
using 62% of available credit.

I'm hoping to get a Tesco CC to balance transfer my 0% HSBC and Virgin cards where I am stoozing 14K, anyone have an idea if this kind of amount will be possible?

Thanks

You didn't say what your income is. That's got to be the number one factor in determining how much credit you'll be offered.

Also, a bit confused about your numbers. How can you have 9k of available credit but 15k of debt? Do you mean you have 24k available credit of which you are currently using 15k?

How many of the 10 credit accounts are active and how many are settled?

The number of searches over the last 12 months seems a bit high. How many have there been in the last six months? Have you been turned down for credit this year? When was the one missed payment?

P.S. In the future I recommend using Direct Debit and then you won't have any missed payments due to holidays, postal problems etc. etc.

Matt123

Thanks for the reply. I think the available is unused credit and the debt is used credit, that's how it was written on the experian report. I've just reduced some credit limits from 3000 and 4300 to 500 and 100, so that will help hopefully.

1 of the accounts is settled, 9 are in use (3 current accounts, phone, 4 CCs, 1 mortgage).
Income is 35k. (household 55k)
Missed payment was 7 months ago.

About the searches, not sure I understand why there are so many, 5 are from opening HSBC CC, 1 HSBC current account (I didnt open this in the end), 1 Virgin MBNA, 1 EGG Money, but..

1 DSGi?, 1 google? 1 Camelot? I didn't realise these places could do credit checks on you, never had any form of credit from them.

Mr._H_2

Matt123 wrote: »

Thanks for the reply. I think the available is unused credit and the debt is used credit, that's how it was written on the experian report. I've just reduced some credit limits from 3000 and 4300 to 500 and 100, so that will help hopefully.

There could be an issue here in that how does a prospective lender know that it was you who changed the credit limits rather than the lender? A small reduction (say £4300 to £3000) might be useful if you want to keep one card and apply for another, but why did you keep the above cards and reduce credit limits rather than just cancel them?

I think we've now got enough info to speculate with. What must be borne in mind though is that each lender has their own set of criteria for credit scoring and those criteria are very closely guarded secrets. The best anyone in this thread can do is guess or offer advice as to how they think you can maximise the possibility of success.

I would advise cancelling the above mentioned accounts (the ones you've reduced to £500 and £100). Presumably this will reduce your available credit by £7300? From the looks of things, that's the best you can do.

When I applied for a Tesco CC the application process took a very long time (over four weeks) and then I was given a useless credit limit (of £150; I was applying to transfer a stoozing balance of over £6k so it was a waste of my time. I didn't have enough time to apply to anyone else to balance transfer so it ended up costing me - had to pay it off out of stooze pot. I complained and got some Tescos vouchers). However YMMV as your income is bigger than mine and I'm a student.

Matt123

The one at 500 is Egg Money, which I would like to keep in case I try taking stoozing a bit further in future (so far I've only used Virgin money transfer and HSBC slow stoozing). I reduced the other instead of cancelling as I've had it for about 3 years and I read there may be deals available for repeat offers, so to reduce it rather than cancel.

I'm not too worried, as I can always pay the card off and I'm not dependant upon the credit, will leave it a month or so and then apply.

Thanks for the advice

Mr._H_2

Matt123 wrote: »

I'm not too worried, as I can always pay the card off and I'm not dependant upon the credit, will leave it a month or so and then apply.

Thanks for the advice

OK. Good luck!

johnllew

Matt123 wrote: »

How much credit can you have?

On credit cards? My wife and I have over £180k in credit limits on cards but have had as much as £400k+.

Mr._H_2

johnllew wrote: »

On credit cards? My wife and I have over £180k in credit limits on cards but have had as much as £400k+.

And your income is? Let's see scans of the credit agreements

looby-loo_2

When we (well me on my husbands behalf;) ) did lots of stoozing a few years ago we applied for several cards in succession. At one point it was up to £200K.

Mr._H_2

looby-loo wrote: »

Not so unusual I think. When we (well me on my husbands behalf;) ) did lots of stoozing a few years ago we applied for several cards in succession. I was amazed how the credit limits stacked up. At one point it was up to £200K and I only worked part time. Now we don't stooze and never spend more than £1K a month which we pay off - most of the credit limits are still there though.

So you had several times your annual income available as unsecured credit? :eek: Somehow I don't think the banks would let that happen at the moment. Well, not for a few years, at least Give it a decade or two and they'll probably be back to their insane ways. With decent savings interest rates and a stooze pot of 200k I wouldn't need a job!

PasturesNew

I have no credit that I'm aware of. I've never tried to get any.

I don't know how it all works and don't expect to either.

I just wouldn't dare borrow money in case something changed/happened and I couldn't pay it back, it'd take away all the joy of having whatever I bought.