Applying for a loan - Help needed

pbfhpunk

Hi

I'm looking to apply for a £15,000 over 5 years and can get a miimum 7.9% interst from my bank, I've looked at advice on here and seen the cheaper rates from other providers, like lombard and cahoot and moneybank.

Where they're typical I know I might not be able to get the low rate but the lombard one I recall reading that it was the only interest rate so everyone would get that one. That sounds great so I'll try and apply for that. My question is if I get turned down it will record a search on my credit history and so will then this affect me getting loans? basically is it worth trying for the lombard loan or others with lower rates or should I just stick with the higher interest rate from the bank?

My credit history is that I had a CCJ and a default but they both came off in March and I've just got 2 credit cards the last couple of weeks to do balance transfers.

grumbler

Credit searches stay on your files for 12 months and seriously affect your credit scorring for about 6 months. If you have your 7.9% loan agreed and are not going to apply for a new credit in the nearest future, you have nothing to lose by shopping around now.

MikeyB_2

If I were you I would have a go at the Lombard offer first

If the 7.9% loan is from your own bank they will most likely be basing their decision on a great deal more than just your credit records/scores from the three CRAs. They have direct access to records of your wages, incomings, outgoings, pattern of spending across a (potentially) longer period than another provider would see from a bank statement etc and in greater depth than can usually be obtained from a credit report. One extra search won't be likely to stand out as much during their decision as it would in other cases as it would be just one piece of a larger puzzle rather than the be all and end all

Certainly my bank of 17 years (HSBC) wouldn't have leant to me when they did if they had put all their faith in the CRA's reports as I'd just had a couple of loan applications rejected from other banks (Nationwide and Tesco/RBS). Obviously they were not flagged as rejections on my credit report, but they were there nonetheless. My bank were my fall back position (6.9 % rather than ~5.5 or ~5.9% with the other two), but I was more confident they would accept my application (and so they did)

**The only potential drawback with your own bank if you've been with them a while is that they may have known about your CCJ and default, especially if they were the victims (cough, cough) and as we know banks have long memories for our mistakes (if not theirs)