Will transfering store card balance to credit card affect mortgage application? Help!

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Apologies for posting this twice!

I've been 'pre-approved' for an 'All in One' credit card by Halifax (I recently moved my current account to them), but I'm not sure if I should take it and what impact it will have on my credit rating.
I have two store cards with around £100 on each, and have been paying the minimum by dd each month, and occasionally paying off a bit more when I have the spare cash. I'm tempted by the credit card as I can transfer the balances from my store card at 0% for 9 months, by which point I'll have paid off the balance, if not sooner.
Also, my partner and I are looking to buy a house. I moved in with him a year ago, we put his place on the market and have been saving for a deposit. We saw a mortgage advisor in Feb who approached lenders for us to arrange an agreement in principle. We were turned down by Nationwide, but Halifax said they'd lend us up to £144k (We're looking to spend £100k tops!!) Around 2 years ago I defaulted on a mobile phone contract (unemployed, problems with JSA as I was a part time student) but paid this off. The mortgage guy reckons this is why we were refused by Nationwide. Since then I've never missed a payment on my store cards.

I'm not sure what is the best way to proceed. Will taking the credit card and closing the store cards have a negative impact on my credit rating and the likelihood of getting a mortgage? Thanks in advance for your help!

InsideInsurance

The problem is that every lender has their own criteria and their own scoring system.

Applying for lots of credit is certainly a negative, only paying minimum payments is also a negative - why are you paying high store card interest rates if you have savings?.

Once clearing the store cards you then have the question of if you should close them or not. There is no correct answer because lenders do look at the number of credit lines you have and what the total available credit is as to judge if you could still afford to pay everything each month if you maxed out all the lines you have. On the flip side they also look at the percentage of outstanding balance you have so the higher the total credit the lower percentage utilisation you will have. High individual credit limits are also seen as a good sign (others trust you) but I'd guess store cards aren't going to have very high limits.

Tixy

How soon are you looking to apply for a mortgage? if its very imminent then I would probably not chance a new credit application at this point - especially not for the sake of transferring a couple of hundred pounds of debt. Even if it takes you a few months to clear the cards its not going to be much interest overall, even at high store card rates.

Though if you have savings for your deposit could you not use a little of thee to pay the cards off anyway given the low balances?

If not ideally pay slightly more than the minimum each month - even if its only £1 more a month - on cards that report the detailed payment info to the credit ref agencies doing this means they are not flagged as only paying the minimum.