topping up an existing loan

quebe

hello folks

i've got a loan with the halifax (my bank) for £8000 over 4and a half years at, i think, 8.9% (£236 per month), which i took out in october 2008. I work out that i've paid about £2500 off this, no late or missed payments.

What i'm looking to do is borrow a further £1500-£2000 to pay off my overdraft and extend the loan period to keep my payments as near to what they currently are as possible.

Does anyone have any experience of topping up loans? I'm mainly wondering if this is going to count as a wasted footprint on my credit file more than anything, if the chances of success are pretty low.

cheers.

never-in-doubt

Halifax are good at this, you can apply to top-up after 6 payments so as you've made 18 - you'll be fine i'd think......

dingdong1984

when topping a loan up do they 'credit check' you again?

never-in-doubt

of course, but usually it goes straight through unless you have adverse, even then the existing customer relationship can pull the score up a little to an acceptable pass rate!

Worth a go, for the small amount involved....

quebe

thanks for the replies. its only 13 payments though rather than 18, as you don't start paying until 3 months in.

think i'll give it a go then. cheers, much appreciated.

dingdong1984

Let us know how you get on!

ukclarkkent

typically, do loans companies offer you the same interest as you took the loan out or the current one? i'm with tesco 4 months in and heard that after 8 payments i can do the same. no plans as yet but just wondering about the difference in rates...

fanks

quebe

i was declined. apparently i didn't pass their credit score.

isn't it great how they go all the way through the details and when you'll get the money, only to say oh sorry you've failed.

and then they offered me an ultimate reward account which would give me £5 a month!

well chuffed.

quebe

something further to this has just come to my attention.

i also have a credit card with the halifax, with a limit of £500. I've just logged in to pay it and have found that the balance is £-3160!!

A transaction has gone through last friday for £2613 and has, obviously, taken me miles over my credit limit. Obviously, i'm fuming about this - it isn't the first time something like this has happened with this card and I'm already sorting it out with Halifax BUT is it likely that this will have affected their decision yesterday?

The above discepancy doesn't appear on my credit file from what i can see, so is there a chance they've seen that the card is widly over the limit and said no to the loan?

cheers for any advice.

Cash_Flow

quebe wrote: »

i was declined. apparently i didn't pass their credit score.

isn't it great how they go all the way through the details and when you'll get the money, only to say oh sorry you've failed.

and then they offered me an ultimate reward account which would give me £5 a month!

well chuffed.

If you have been living in your O/D it would not have helped your case;)

quebe

yeah i figured as much. used my OD as i was on holiday in india for most of last month, so it wasn't a normal month's expenditure.

i'm also assuming that because they said they had to offer me another loan to pay off the one i've got, they'll have viewed this as 7K + 9K of debt. which kind of begs the question, whats the point in offering loans for certain purposes if they don't trust you're going to use the loan for that purpose?! why not just not offer them at all?