Help with further borrowing on mortgage?

wallaby78

Hi, wondered if anyone with experience could help!

We have had a mortgage with Standard Life for almost 10 years. We currently need to borrow about £30,000 so contacted them about further borrowing. We have done work on our house recently, adding a bedroom and making the living area open plan and family friendly. The last valuation we had on the house was about 7 years ago and it was £150,000 then. House prices in our area have not fallen (they went up until recently) and with the work etc we estimate that the value is now at least about £190,000. Our mortgage was £112,00 and so we will now be looking to borrow about 75% of the value.

My husband works for himself and also part time for someone else and he has accounts and payslips to show he made £75,000 last year (a bit less the year before but still okay). I work for myself and technically did not make anything last year (first year of trading) so won't be able to report any income.

My worry is we just looked at my husband's credit record on Equifax and, while before it was spotless, over the last 6 months there are 3 late credit card payments. None of them are in a row (each says 1) 2 are for our smallest credit card with the smallest payment and one back in January was for our larger one. The smaller one was only a few days late (Barclaycard) both times but they still seem to have reported it. The larger one was a mistake, he paid another bill 2x and did not realise he had missed that one until the next bill came. My credit record has no late payments as those cards are in his name.

I am now in full out panic and worry they will turn us down outright.

We registered with Experian on the 5th of April but have not received the PIN yet (probably due to the bank hols etc). I would like to see if their record is the same as I know that most lenders use them.

I am very worried about this. Is it worth putting a note on his report to explain why we were late (among other things we have had a parent who has been very sick with cancer recently) or will it not matter to Standard Life, our mortgage provider? Is it worth it to say "this is why this happened" and at least try to explain? And also say what we have put in place so it won't happen again? If they have to read that and our credit is good otherwise will that make any difference at all?

Any suggestions on what we can do would be appreciated. Thanks for your help!

Thrugelmir

Barclays has bought the mortgage book of Standard Life. So you may need to remortgage to obtain further funds.

Late payments are just late. In these days of direct debits there's no justifiable reason for not paying the minimum amount on your cards every month at the very least.

wallaby78

Hi, we contacted Barclays first but they can't deal with us until July or you have to pay a big penalty. We can currently still deal with Standard Life. They have sent us an initial illustration but haven't done a credit check etc until we contact them back.

My husband hadn't set up a direct debit as the nature of his work means he has to move money between different account regularly and he found it easier to do manually (sometimes paying from a different account). He has now set up a direct debit. Ow which is one of the things we would tell them.

Dave_Ham

You may want to check the terms from Standard Life first vs the ones you would get from Barclays or on the open market, if you can hold off till July?

I am not sure the further advance would be at that competitive a rate...?

wallaby78

Thanks for the advice so far, will check the Standard Life terms etc.

Do you think the late payments won't be too big an issue then? Otherwise our credit has been good.

Thrugelmir

wallaby78 wrote: »

Thanks for the advice so far, will check the Standard Life terms etc.

Do you think the late payments won't be too big an issue then? Otherwise our credit has been good.

Do you owe much in the way of unsecured debt?

Dave_Ham

Given the loan to value and non-consecutive nature of these, many lenders will view this as sloppy, in opposition to an inability or lack of desire to repay.

There are obviously many other variables a lender considers, but aside from the usual suspects who are more fussy most high street lenders will be ok I would suspect...

wallaby78

Thrugelmir wrote: »

Do you owe much in the way of unsecured debt?

A bit, we have a couple loans. One almost paid off, the other about 1/2 done. My husband has accounts and payslips to show we can definitely cover all the payments though, hopefully they would look at this? (He is making a lot more than he used to.)

wallaby78

Dave_Ham wrote: »

Given the loan to value and non-consecutive nature of these, many lenders will view this as sloppy, in opposition to an inability or lack of desire to repay.

There are obviously many other variables a lender considers, but aside from the usual suspects who are more fussy most high street lenders will be ok I would suspect...

Thank you so much!

It was just sloppiness. We were under a lot of stress due to a family illness and my husbands usual systems of doing things just fell apart. I am more worried about credit ratings etc (having grown up in the US and having it drilled into me from a young age) but seeing this on his credit rating now my husband is taking it more seriously now.

Who are the "usual suspects"? Can you point me to a list?

Thanks again.

Thrugelmir

wallaby78 wrote: »

A bit, we have a couple loans. One almost paid off, the other about 1/2 done. My husband has accounts and payslips to show we can definitely cover all the payments though, hopefully they would look at this? (He is making a lot more than he used to.)

So is the purpose of the addition borrowing to repay debt?

Dave_Ham

HSBC, First Direct, Nationwide, Santander & Accord are the more selective lenders...

Good luck