Credit cards and mortgage;

Seanymph

We will be looking to raise a mortgage in six months or so.

We have a LOT of available credit on our credit cards (some still have balances but I shall pay them all off before we apply for a mortgage).

I suspect between us we have something like 50k available. Should we cancel some of these cards? They will all have zero balances.

We HAVE had higher balances - about four months ago we were up to nearly 14k - but never missed a payment, currently it's about 11.5 - and after the sale of a property I shall pay them all off completely later next month.

Given that they are paid off should we cancel/reduce the credit limit on them to assist our mortgage application please?

kingstreet

If you want a 90% LTV on 4 x joint income - yes.

If you want a 70% LTV on 2 x joint income - no.

It's the overall picture, rather than a snapshot of one corner that matters. If you have decent employment duration, good residence history and always been on the electoral roll, you'll be fine.

What you've described would only impact the marginal cases where there are obvious areas for downscore.