About to get a mortgage and just have a few questions before I apply.

CapG

Hi guys, as the title says we're looking to get a mortgage but I'm wondering if you guys can help me clear a few questions up.

First: When you apply for a mortgage they ask if you have any loans. At the moment I have one, and the final repayment is due next week. Now If i went to apply for a mortgage before this payment would having this final £100 to pay affect what mortage I could get due to having credit elsewhere? Also, would saying I have no loans be a really bad idea?

Second: when I was younger, about 4 or 5 years ago, I had an overdraft with natwest. Now I moved out of my parents home renting but left my mailing address as being there. I hadn't been to check my mail for a long time, close to 6 months maybe, as I saw and spoke to my parents regularly outside of the house. When I eventually collected my mail I had about 4 letters saying natwest were going to start collection on my debt (I was oblivous to the situation and never paid anything into the account or took anything else out and just used a separate one - and because nothing was going into this account for so long they wanted their money back). When I eventually read these I rang the number on the letter immediately and started putting money in each month to clear it. The person I spoke to said collections hadn't gone a head and doing this would be fine to stop the process from starting. My question is though because natwest had passed my account to their collections department would this affect my credit score/history? As far as I'm away I just got the 4 letters, sorted the account out and nothing else happened. But now I've got this gut wrenching feeling this might be on my credit history and affect me getting a mortgage, or atleast a decent one.

If anybody who knows about this sort of thing would give me some advice I'd really appreciate it.

Many thanks.

kingstreet

1. No. Lenders ignore loans with less than six months left to run. Make sure you declare it as you score points for well-managed credit and get down-scored for anything not disclosed.

2. Get a copy of your statutory credit files from the three Credit Reference Agencies to ensure your record is clean before you think about applying.