Zopa - declined

Elbee

Hi - can anyone help?
I want to finish some home improvements - will take around £6k. We've already used £20k of our savings to carry out some work, but would rather not use any more. Like to have a slush fund just in case. Asked the building soc if I could 'draw down' money as they said we could if we made overpayments on the mortgage. I've been paying £200 extra per month for a good few years. Rang them, the man was really rude - said they don't do that now and reluctantly when pushed, gave me existing customer tracker rates and fees (£500 to £995). he wasn't overly bothered either way.
I'd found Zopa on here and thought they may be a better option - more apr but you borrow from real humans. I didn't want to apply for a loan outright as I would be declined. I wanted to do a listing so i could explain finances. My salary £1300 pm is taken up with a loan I took out a couple of years ago, plus a couple of cards with low life of balance transfers. I have about £600 left of which I pay £200 extra on mortgage. It looks like I live on thin air! I wanted to list so I could explain that we use husbands salary £2k pm to run house, shopping etc. Mortgage is only £150 pm and we save money for holidays etc. We don't smoke or drink - like a meal out, but as for vices that's about it. I started a listing - explaining, about finances, always pay on time, even though repayments were coming out at £160, I would set up debit for £200 to pay off early etc. For some reason, when I went to next, it took me to the loan page. so I thought, it must want me to do this first to check my identity etc and then my listing would appear. Nope. It disappeared. I got an email saying that it had been declined which I knew would happen. So I applied for a loan I didn't want and got refused which made me absolutely gutted!
Can I not do a listing now that I've applied for a loan?
Any ideas? What did I do wrong?

stephenni1971

Why are you doing all this if you are so sure you will be declined?

Elbee

On the Zopa site - it looks like you can do one of 2 things. You can either apply for a loan, or create a listing. I wanted to create a listing as I could explain the circumstances, but what I ended up doing was applying for a loan but no idea how. I've emailed Zopa to ask what I did wrong. Maybe I didn't do things in the right order. I didn't want to apply for the loan because on the face value it looks like I run a house on thin air by myself! They don't have joint applications so I couldn't do that. Looking at other people's listings it looked like you could put your case forward.
I'm positive we would get a joint loan with no problem but I wanted to deal with humans and not the faceless building society that ours seems to have turned into.
Hope that's a bit clearer because on the face of it, what I did does appear a little odd!!

Jamesf81

Zopa run credit checks for the security of their memebers and only accept people with good credit ratings.

If you have alot of active credit and payments going out this is another reason why they may reject you.

It is tougher than the high street bank as it is peoples own money been loaned.

Elbee

Jamesf81 wrote: »

Zopa run credit checks for the security of their memebers and only accept people with good credit ratings.

If you have alot of active credit and payments going out this is another reason why they may reject you.

It is tougher than the high street bank as it is peoples own money been loaned.

I knew they would run checks and thought my rating was pretty good - no missed payments ever. I didn't have an issue with being checked - I just don't know why it went to the loans as opposed to the listings which is where I wanted to be.

I liked the thought of being loaned other people's money - I'm a responsible person and I think knowing that it is a real person's money, just makes the responsibility even more important. My boss told me I had too high morals last week, but I don't think that's a bad thing. I can be a lender on there as I think it's a good thing and I would want the borrowers checked too.

Jamesf81

Not sure why they have rejected it then it could be as simple as too many credit accounts.

You would have to ask them if they can give you an explanation.

LDJ2009

Hi, this is the link you should have followed to create a listing.

https://uk.zopa.com/ZopaWeb/Workflow/Process.aspx?process=JOIN_AND_LIST&stage=EDIT_LISTING&mode=New

Is that the one you completed ?

CLAPTON

without the details it seems somewhat eccentric to have considerable debts but also savings and you over pay your mortage and yet you want to borrow more money.

jamesd

Elbee, First thing is, don't be too disheartened. Something around 80% of people who apply are turned down. In your case it seems almost certain that you have too much existing debt to qualify for the markets but the listings part has less strict tests and you may qualify there.

Alternatively, have you considered 0% with 4% fee credit card deals like the 16 month one from Virgin? That lets you transfer the balance transfer money directly into your current account and it can be cheaper than a standard loan. See the Super Balance Transfers article and this list of SBT cards. If you haven't cleared the card by the time the 0% deal ends you can use a standard balance transfer, subject to acceptance with the new card, to extend the term for another balance transfer fee. Cards tend to be cheaper than loans for smaller amounts, a few thousand, and shorter terms. For the largest amounts it can be hard to get a high enough set of credit limits to meet the target loan amount.

If the need isn't urgent another option is to use a 0% for spending card and put all of your normal spending on the card, using the money you're not spending on normal things to pay for the work on the house. This avoids the initial super balance transfer fee so it can be cheaper.

Declaration of interest: I both have loans via Zopa and offer to lend via Zopa. It's currently unlikely that my offers to lend will be accepted and I'm not currently interested in lending via listings.

Elbee

CLAPTON wrote: »

without the details it seems somewhat eccentric to have considerable debts but also savings and you over pay your mortage and yet you want to borrow more money.

I can see it looks bizzare but there are several reasons for what I've done/want to do. The debts aren't an issue - they're on low rate blance transfers and the loan is for something personal that I would like to pay for on my own withou using joint savings. I don't want to leave us potless and if the building soc had honoured their word I could have done it on the mortgage. House worth £300k mortgage £71k so it wouldn't have been a stretch but I understand what your point is and appreciate your comments.

Elbee

LDJ2009 wrote: »

Hi, this is the link you should have followed to create a listing.


Is that the one you completed ?

Not sure - I'll have a look tomorrow as I've hidden my password and can't find it at the moment! Thankyou and I'll have a look when I can get in. Sorry I've had to edit the link as it won't let me reply with the link in it.