Newbie with old debts questions

oddone

Hello,
I have couple of questions about quite old debts. Here goes...
I graduated 7 years ago with a 6,000 student loan. I then moved
to another country and tried to keep up with payments but after
2 months stopped due to bad judgement on my behalf. I also had
two credit cards with balances of about 400 and didn't make
payments on those.
I returned to live in the U.K. last October a lot wiser and with 10,000
in savings and determined to make a fresh start. I have a job
that pays about 24,000. I am considering getting a mortgage with my
partner and so got my credit reports from Experian and Equifax expecting
to be shamed with my bad debts.
However, Equifax only has my new bank account and a new Next
account. Experian has the same, plus the two credit cards from all
those years ago with default dates of 2000 + 2001.
My student loan (HSBC) is nowhere to be seen. So, what happened
to it? How can I find out where it is and work out a payment plan?
Should I do this or will it make my credit rating worse?
Secondly, these two GE Capital Credit Cards. Should I contact them and
offer F+F settlement or full payment plan? If I do, I will have settled defaults for the next 6 years.. right?
My bank has verbally agreed to give me a mortgage as I can offer
the desposit and have a permanent job but I don't want these bad debts
jumping up and biting me in the !!!!!!!
Any answer or advice would be greatly apreciated.
Oddon

magentadreamer

Your HSBC loan might not be showing up as I believe HSBC don't report them to the CRA's ( I think they've recently changed this policy). I might be totally wrong but when I got my CRA reports recently nothing about my banking history with HSBC showed up - I've had an account with them for years.I've had a loan with them during the last 6 years plus I had one of their CC's a few years back neither of which showed up.

Defaults appear on your CRA report for 6 years from when they were defaulted.