Probably an old question

andrea1968_2

Sorry if this has been answered a gazillion times before.

When mortgage lenders are doing credit searches how long do old loans and credit card accounts (all fully paid and always on time) stay on your report for ?

I was previously in quite a state financially and had a number of credit cards at the same time as well as a couple of loans.

Thankfully now I've paid everything off and managed to save £9500 in the last 10 months towards a joint deposit (and just have 1 credit card which is paid in full each time I use it, but myself and my other half don't want to start applying for mortgaes "too soon" if they are still going to show up and have a detremental effect. We'd be looking at applying probably Aug/Sept time hopefully by which time our deposit will be quite a bit bigger anyway.

Thanks for your answers in advance

Meeper

My answer would be "quite some time". With things like this, I wouldn't try to over-analyse it too much. If there are previous accounts without excellent conduct but since then you have settled them all and your current conduct is good, this will be much more important to a lender. Besides which, you have no way of knowing how each individual lender will INTERPRET the data, which is the important thing.

Perhaps you could do an agreement in principle with a high-street lender whose credit scoring is reasonably loose (Santander, for example) and check whether they would be willing to accept you. That would give you a reasonable idea of what might happen in August or September, provided you keep things clean between now and then.

Thrugelmir

Have you closed the "other" credit card accounts As opposed to merely stopped using them.

holly_hobby

The accounts will remain active on your CR as long as they remain current, even if there is a nil balance and they are not being actively used.

Redeemed (fully satisifed) or defaulted financial accounts are removed from your CR following the 6th anniversary of cessation/record of default.

As Meeper says, current and recent responsible debt management is what a lender wants to see, hic-ups in the past may be considered as part of the whole process, but should be re-balanced by more recent activity (if the blips are not too serious), and you have subsequently demonstrated a pristine record since.

Hope this helps

Holly

andrea1968_2

Thanks for your helpful answers.

Thrugelmir wrote: »

Have you closed the "other" credit card accounts As opposed to merely stopped using them.[/QU

All the cards have been fully paid and closed, its just the one card that I use but always pay in full whenever I have to use it.