Some FTB Advice please about mortgage application

SHughes

Hi All,

First time poster on the forums but semi regular reader.

Myself and my fiancee are looking to buy our first home in the coming months and are looking into mortgages now. But before sorting out a mortgage I so have some concerns which I hope you guys could help with.

Just over 3 years ago it came to our attention that a family member of my fiancee had been putting credit accounts in her name. It turned out that there was a few missed and late payments with these companies and as soon as we knew all this had happened we paid everything off just to clear her name (all sorted out within family since then). How will this affect our mortgage application with the following salary information:

Me
Salary £30k
No Loans, Credit Cards
No Student Loan
I expect clean credit history

Her
Salary £13k
No Loans, Credit Cards
Only blot should be the above mentioned missed/late payments


Any help would be appreciated. Thank you all.

R_P_W

What deposit will you have behind you? What price range are you going to be looking at for property?

The more deposit you have and the less % you need to borrow makes any history less of an issue, but if you are looking to borrow 90-95% you may struggle.

SHughes

Sorry, forgot to include that information in my opening post.

We're looking at properties between 125 and 130k, and are looking for a mortgage of 100k, so we're looking at 80%LTV at the most.

I also forgot to mention what the missed/late payments were for - they were catalogues and total we were aware of was about £1500.

Apart from this we've no other credit issues.

Any information is welcomed, driving myself mad worrying about how a mortgage application would go.

Dave_Ham

Do not worry, from what information you have provided there will be a solution.

I would suggest you print up all of your credit reports and then put them in front of a decent broker and they will do the rest.


Good luck

SHughes

Thanks for your reply Dave. You suggest then that we should get online and get some credit reports and then go to an independent broker rather than going to a high street bank/building society?

Even though these blots on my fiancee's credit history will be 3+ years old now, will they have much of an impact on the application?

Dave_Ham

They will have less of an impact, but without seeing the reports it is impossible to guess how much.

A broker is better placed as we would have access to many options and can tailor our advice sepcifically on lender selection. This is in opposition to the banks where if you go into bank x and give them your credit reports, they are targetted and will say oh yes these should be fine we have product x from us - but that is all they can offer as only have access to their own criteria so you can never get neutrality and the optimum lender selection.

Hope this makes sense...

kingstreet

You might consider actually having some well-maintained credit to score you more points. As things stand, you don't appear to have much of a credit record.

A credit card used for your usual expenses, paid off in full on receipt of the statement each month will help mitigate this.

This relies on you having a decent amount of time before you intend to apply for a mortgage.

I agree with Dave. Apply for your credit files from the CRAs. The paper £2 ones will do. Don't sign up to online services where they tell you your "score" as these are worthless and are only indicative at best.

SHughes

Thanks for the information Dave. I think what I understand form your message is that a broker has the flexibility to look at other mortgages from different banks/building societies if the history was ever a problem, but it *might* be that the blots on the history won't cause an issue.

Hi kingstreet, thanks for your reply. We do have some well maintained credit to our names. My fiancee has both our mobile phones contracts in her name (two phones on one account) which is paid for each month by DD for the last 3 or so years. I have had a mobile contract before and that was all paid ok, and I currently have home contents insurance which is paid for each month which I assume will gain me some good credit. I assume this is what you refer to when you mention well maintained credit? I'll look into getting the credit reports - we've both done the Experian credit expert online about a year ago and I think mine was at excellent and my fiancee's at Good even though she had the blots on the history. I assume this bodes well?

Dave_Ham

Bodes well yes, but the scores are indicative and only really loose as the information is crucial and not the score...

Good luck

SHughes

Thanks Dave.

Can anyone recommend best place to get credit report from? Looking around I see a few such as credit expert but no idea who best to go with. Does getting a credit report count as a credit search?

SHughes

Hi all again,

Just got both mine and partners credit reports on CallCredit (Experian wasn't working online). Mine looks ok as expected with my mobile phones's over the last 6 years showing up on it all ok and also a credit card I had for work over 3 years ago all showing ok and paid ok (forgot about that one as tried to forget about that job!!!). My fiancee's looks ok recently with our mobiles account all paid up ok, and current account overdraft facility all showing ok. Then it comes to the two catalogue accounts that were unknowingly placed in her name - they each have one 'early delinquent' mark on them that was three years ago. That is the only blot on those two accounts. As mentioned previously in thread, these accounts were closed off as soon as we found out about the situation so they are all settled.

I assume this report isn't looking as bad as I thought?

Slightly off topic - do insurance searches count against you? There's loads of car insurance searches on us as I've been searching and renewing both of our's car insurance in last month.