Appeal of declined decision - what are our chances?

princessgem

Last week we received the bad news that Halifax had declined our mortgage application. Both myself and my partner were baffled as we both have a good credit score and history.

After many calls we finally discover their decision is down to bad credit linked to an associated address of mine.

Long story short we have now discovered that the reason for the bad credit was an outstanding account that I had when I worked for an old employer almost a year ago now. As they were a start up company I was asked to take out a broadband dongle as a business account in my name, on the understanding that if and when I left I would be able to transfer the account to the director of the company. Sadly when I left the company back in February they never completed the transfer forms and unbeknown to me, the account continued to run in my name until in August the account was closed due to defaults and passed over to a debt collection agency.

The outstanding debt has now been paid off in full and I am told that the service provider will be able to ask Experian to remove the bad credit mark from my account. I have also asked my old director to provide us with a letter clearly absolving me from responsibility for the debt, though failing that I do have an email trail with him admitting fault, which I hope might count for something.

Obviously this has all been incredibly stressful and hasn't been helped by a mortgage broker that isn't really holding out much hope for us being able to appeal the current decision. In fact, I was told this morning that Halifax operate a very "computer says no" system and they were unlikely to listen to reason.

So I just wanted to put the scenario out there and find out from others who may have been in a similar situation what the outcome is likely to be and if there is anything we can do to further support our appeal.

Thanks so much if you have got this far, I appreciate it has been a long post.

Gem

GMS

You took out the broadband contract and did not keep up with the terms. Simple as that. Saying it was for somebody else will not make a blind bit of difference as you signed the terms.

The fact that it has been paid will help slightly but the credit reference agency will not remove the data as they are correct in what has been reported, unless the service provider tell them a mistake has been made.

There is no reason for them to do this as they are correct.

Good luck with it but I would not hold out much hope.

princessgem

This would be fine, however the service provider has a record of the transfer of ownership request being made on February 16th 2010 however they have said for some "unknown reason" this was never fully processed. I never received any correspondance to say the transfer hadn't gone through and a month later when I tried to follow up on the transfer I was told they could give me no further information on the account as it wasn't in my name. Rightly or wrongly so I believed this meant t he transfer of ownership had been completed.

USM

Sorry but you are at fault here. You had a responsibility to keep up payments until you had written confirmation that your account was closed/transferred.

They will not remove this from your credit file as it is an accurate representation of the chain of events.

GMS

princessgem wrote: »

This would be fine, however the service provider has a record of the transfer of ownership request being made on February 16th 2010 however they have said for some "unknown reason" this was never fully processed. I never received any correspondance to say the transfer hadn't gone through and a month later when I tried to follow up on the transfer I was told they could give me no further information on the account as it wasn't in my name. Rightly or wrongly so I believed this meant t he transfer of ownership had been completed.

Your original post states that the company had not completed the transfer forms and now say that the service provider never processed it for some 'unknown reason'. Was the reason that they never received the forms?

Your only hope is to ask the service provider to amend the data with the credit reference agencies.

The account remained your responsibility so unless the service provider are willing to accept blame and resolve you are stuck.

A mortgage company would not accept that it was not your fault. How much was the default for?

How much are you looking to borrow?
How much deposit/equity do you have?

princessgem

Sorry I was unclear in my OP. I only discovered this weekend that the transfer forms may not have been completed and unfortunately my old managing director has been unable to say one way or another if they were completed. At the time I had every belief that the transfer of ownership had been successful as when I called to confirm the account had switched ownership I was told they could give me no information as the account was not in my name.

Admittedly I had found it incredibly odd that I received no correspondence from either the service provider or the debt collection agency. However it has now transpired that despite my transfer request not being completed they have still managed to change the address to the business address that was on my transfer request form....so either they are incredibly clever or the form was in their possession at some point.

Whilst I appreciate what has been said about it being my debt as I was the one who signed the agreement, I still find it incredibly frustrating as had I any idea about the outstanding balance I'd have paid it immediately just to ensure I wasn't in this situation later down the line.

I have never even had a late payment on an account prior to this, and aside from this blip, have a good credit report.

The default was for £190.04 and was paid as soon as I found out it even existed. We have a 15% deposit and are asking for £125,000. Neither myself nor my partner have any outstanding commitments.

Crinz

These are the only situations when an appeal can be heard:

1.Derogatory information registered in error supported by documentary evidence. - Not the case as the information was correct to be registered in your name. The dongle was still in your name and the payments should have been made by you. Unless you can get the provider to admit fault in writing then no amount of email communicaiton between you and your old boss will help
2.Third party derogatory data scoring in error.
-N/A3.Existing Halifax mortgage customer moving home and improving Halifax position both in terms of reducing debt and LTV. -N/A
4.Offer issued i.e. no changes to the name, address and date of birth detail with written confirmation from the solicitor that exchange has taken place. - N/A

Your only solution is to get the company to admit fault, anything outside this situation will be rejected.

In halifax there are multiple levels of credit scoring before you get 'failed'. Even if an appeal is succesful then they will most likely limit lending to 75%

GMS

princessgem wrote: »

Sorry I was unclear in my OP. I only discovered this weekend that the transfer forms may not have been completed and unfortunately my old managing director has been unable to say one way or another if they were completed. At the time I had every belief that the transfer of ownership had been successful as when I called to confirm the account had switched ownership I was told they could give me no information as the account was not in my name.

Admittedly I had found it incredibly odd that I received no correspondence from either the service provider or the debt collection agency. However it has now transpired that despite my transfer request not being completed they have still managed to change the address to the business address that was on my transfer request form....so either they are incredibly clever or the form was in their possession at some point.

Whilst I appreciate what has been said about it being my debt as I was the one who signed the agreement, I still find it incredibly frustrating as had I any idea about the outstanding balance I'd have paid it immediately just to ensure I wasn't in this situation later down the line.

I have never even had a late payment on an account prior to this, and aside from this blip, have a good credit report.

The default was for £190.04 and was paid as soon as I found out it even existed. We have a 15% deposit and are asking for £125,000. Neither myself nor my partner have any outstanding commitments.

You should speak to a broker asap. Do not keep applying for mortgages as this will make things worse. You need to apply for the CORRECT mortgage which may or may not be the cheapest deal.

Without knowing your full circumstances it is impossible to say but if the only credit issue you have is a default of that amount then there could well be options for you.

trooperdog

hi i had a mortgage declined , (althogh i have a good salary and a good credit history etc) appealed it and still got a no. Id listen to GMS in this climate and go for the correct mortgage rather than the cheapest deals. I went to experian and paid 6 quid for my score and printed it all off along with my report (had about 30 pages lol) and gave it to my broker, although this doesnt mean that much, my broker was able to give several mortage companys a better and more realistic heads up before they did a search, although this still doesnt gurantee a DiP etc it give me more idea if i was liable to be accepted or dceclined. not sure what the rest of the people on this site think about that but it seemed to give me a warm fuzzy feeling!!

GMS

Do not pay for credit scores with the reference agencies, they will have no meaning to a lender. If Equifax/Experian were to lend the money then it would be relevant, but as they don't it is not.

A statutory report from either company is £2 on line. This should be sufficient.

Obtaining reports from both would be beneficial as different lenders use different agencies.

A good broker would be able to look at the reports and place a deal from them.