Going over my overdraft limit

gavin_gil

Apologies if this is in the wrong section.

I have a current account with NatWest, I have £1000 overdraft that I spent much of my time in. Due to various circumstances, i.e. wife losing her job, I would sometimes miss payments and I was constantly getting hit with charges.

I then moved accounts to Halifax. I cancelled all my direct debits with Natwest and thought that was that. I had forgot about the monthly fee for having a premier account, or whatever, my own fault, I should have checked. When I did check the account back in August last year, I'd recieved yet another charge for going overdrawn. Long story short, I've been trying to get this sorted since then and only have got it resolved now. Everytime I talked to someone, they then seemed to leave the branch and no one else bothered getting back to me, this has happened twice.

I have now got them to turn the £1000 overdraft into a loan, so that gets that paid off but they have also added £265 worth of charges. They have agreed to write off £200 so I pay the £65.

My question is this, with my account being over its overdraft limit for a few months, will it have an affect on my credit rating as I'm going to be looking for a mortgage this year. The lady at Natwest said it will be recorded on my file but shouldn't affect my rating, is this true.

Thanks!

Tixy

It would be worth checking your credit file to see exactly what has been recorded. When you are overlimit it sometimes only shows for the latest month (ie credilt limit £1000, current balance -£1150), and then once your back within limit then it would no longer be possible for another lender to know.

Other times creditors do record this as a negative, like a late payment. Its also just possible you could have had a default registered against your account if it was overlimit for some months in a row (although it sounds like this probably hasn't happened in your case).

You can check your credit files for £2 for each agency or using the free trials (providing you remember to cancel within the first month).

gavin_gil

Thanks for the reply Tixy, if they were going to record a default would they not have to write to me first?

I've been at the same address for over 20 years so would have got a letter if it was sent.