Self Certified AND poor credit - is there a half decent mortgage I can get?

shazndaz

I re-mortgaged a year ago and got an absolutely terrible deal. At the time I was just so desperate I took what I could get but now I realise it was a mistake. The mortgage was discounted for 18 months but I'm "locked in" for 5 years. However, I think it may be worth paying the early redemption penalty to get out of it (about £3k). I'm paying 7% now which is bad enough but in September it will go up to 9%!!!! My husband is self-certified, I only work part-time and we have had a late payment on the mortgage within the last year. Can't remember which month it was but I should be getting a statement soon as I've had the mortgage a year so I will find out then. Does anyone know if there is a mortgage we can get that is better than our current one? Also, how long does it take to repair a poor credit rating?

dsk1980

Hi,
First of all, don;t worry, one missed payment is really not that bad (there are many much worse).
To 'clear' a poor credit history depends what you mean by poor.
CCJs, Bankruptcies etc stay on your Credit File for 6 years, however, the majority of lenders only take account of the last three years.
There are many lenders these days who lend to people with varying degrees of poor credit, and this means that there are lots of competitive deals out there.
The irony with your mortgage, is that as you 'repair' your history (i.e. keep paying) your payments are going up, rather than allowing you to remortgage to reduce your interest!
There will definately be better deals, but you are best going to see a mortgage broker that specialises in customers with poor credit / self-certification.
Just type mortgage broker into a search engine and you'll find loads.
Good Luck!

simonjfisher

I agree with what dsk1980 says, it's not that bad to miss one payment, it may not even show up on a credit search as long as you made the payment by the end of the month.

The best way to find a mortgage broker is by getting your friends/relatives/colleagues to recommend one.

herbiesjp

You will find that one missed/late payment may not be the end of the world with a lot of lenders. What you have to bear in mind is the fact that you are stating your had to self cert last time. If this is still the case, it may be a bit trickier, as these lenders do tend to have tighter credit checks.

I think you will still be able to find another deal though.

shazndaz

Thanks that's reassuring. It got a bit worrying when I went onto Charcol, input self-cert and yes to credit problems and it said there were zero products that match my criteria. We haven't got ccj's or had bankruptcies, just quite a few late payments on stuff up to a couple of months ago. I found out our credit ratings are in the mid 200's. Is that bad?

herbiesjp

Search engines are good, but they are only as good as the informtion put on them. They are mainly rate based based searches as opposed to criteria based searches, and so cannot encoprate any flexibility a lender may have in a particular situation. These are things a broker would know from their day to day contact with lenders. I'm sure there are some lenders that will look at this for you.