Credit check at completion

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Hello,

I have got a mortgage and I am due to complete next week.
When I got the mortgage I had a credit score of around 850.
Last week I bought a sofa at dfs, to pay in 4 years interest free, and checked my score now and it has dropped to 770, and as the house we are buying is new, I am spending some money in my credit card as well to pay for carpet and flooring.
Do you guys think I would have a problem with a credit check before completion next week?
Thanks a lot.

Senior_Paper_Monitor

We advise our clients to leave their credit cards alone (or at least keep within standard use patterns - change of patterns can affect score) between offer and acompletion for this very reason.

However, provided your affordability is not extremely tight you should be OK - the Credit Agency score is not what they are looking at.

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Do you know if they do a credit check before completion?
What would be a good score?
Thanks again.

Senior_Paper_Monitor

As I don't know who the lender is I certainly don't know their policy on this - this may be done on a random or underwriter driven (on criteria or a hunch) basis.

The lender doesn't see what you refer to as 'your score' - they look at raw data.

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The lender is Halifax, I have been told that they normally don't do a second check, but I am afraid now that they are going to see the finance for the sofa and think that it is a loan.

Senior_Paper_Monitor

Any lender can do subsequent checks - yes it would look like a loan/liability and probably counted in affordability

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Do you how likely they are to do another check?
And do you know if they could see it as problem and cancel the mortgage, or would they just come and ask me what is this for?
Thanks

handytips

You have a 50/50 chance of being re checked, i would keep your fingers crossed, if the credit score had dropped below 650 then i would really start worrying. In my experience you should be fine, but taking on new credit commitments prior to the mortgage starting is a bit of a dangerous game to play.

Senior_Paper_Monitor

As handytips indicates - the actual odds will also depend how tight you were to criteria.

Your risk is not on the score (that you see), but that if you were tight on affordability at the point of application you may exceed it when re-evaluated.

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Thank you very much guys.
I think I will be fine as my credit score now is 773.
If they really think it is a problem, will they question it to me, like what is this for?

Senior_Paper_Monitor

I'm trying very hard to explain this to you .....

THE ISSUE IS UNLIKELY TO BE YOUR SCORE !!!!

The issue is more likely to be affordability due to new financial commitments since any previous affordability calculation - if you were tight at the initial calculation then you may have a problem with a new one.