Planning to buy in a year's time - is our plan sensible?

ShALLaX

Careful about cancelling lines of credit, I believe it can give you a bad credit rating in certain circumstances. I heard a story on LBC 97.3 today or yesterday about how someone cancelled a card that they had held for 15 years only to find it significantly adversely affected their credit score (probably to do with breaking off such a long term establishment of trust).

Whirlybob

Well, is it correct that simply having credit available (even if unused) can adversely affect your borrowing position?

If it isn't, I'll leave them be. If it does, then is it best to cancel the credit you don't need or use, or ask for the limits to be reduced? (I know that once you request a limit reduction, the credit card company typically refuse to raise it again for a certain amount of time).

ShALLaX

Also true. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. Just keep a sensible amount of credit available to you.

dwsjarcmcd

Just a couple of points. While you do have to have buildings insurance in place with your mortgage, it doesn't need to be with the lender you borrow from, in fact they will almost certainly be very expensive for this.

You also don't need to tell the lender you're planning a family, they will probably assume this anyway!

You clearly have thought this through but personally I think 4 x joint income when one is self employed will be tough to achieve when your wife has a limited track record.