So viewed my credit file for the first time.

Gooner123

Quick Background
Me and the girlfriend are getting married next August and have been discussing looking into saving a deposit after to but our first house. I have been in a good job with good pay and great prospects for a year now and can finally think about getting a house. However, we both have been poor with credit and Thursday I decided to get our credit filed on Equifax, knowing I often fail credit checks and have lost control of my debts and expecting it to be a low score.

What I found
Between us we had 7 defaulted debts of 9000 in total, and 4 CCJs totalling 2000. I had a score of 179 and my partner had 155, which is deemed very poor (no surprise). All the named debts arent getting paid at the moment and are up to 5 years old, the CCJS I have no idea what they are but the description says Northampton CCBC.

What I did
I then googled debt consolidation and found the details for money expert who then put me through to Immediate Financial, who said they could get rid of my debt through a debt settlement plan in 3 years and 5 months for 155 a month, sounded great.

Where I am now
I have since read up about the company and have decided I would like to do things myself but I'm posting on here for advice to help me along and will start a debt diary, so I have a few questions:-

Where do I start?

How do I settle CCJs?

How can I improve my credit score?

Realistically how long will it be till my credit allows me to even think about getting a mortgage?

Any advice at all? (would be really helpful)

stressedbusymum

Hi,

Im in pretty much the same position, looking to buy a house in the future so trying to improve my credit report.

What dates are your defaults and CCJs, from what i understand they will be removed from your file six years after this date. You will struggle to find a good mortgage for as long as these are on your file.

Use this time to save for a good sized deposit, thats my plan!

Make sure to keep credit agreements that are not already in trouble paid on time and try to keep your balances low.

You could join Payplan or CCCS to help set up a debt management plan to help clear your debts. These companies are free and invaluable, do not use a company who charge there really is no need. I am paying off my creditors myself very easily. I sent them all a copy of my ingoings and outgoings and my proposed repayment amount and so far they have all been very reasonable and accepted the amounts i requested.

Good Luck!!

Gooner123

Cheers for the reply.

I think I'm going to try and take care of it by myself.

After doing a lot of reading yesterday about debt, I found that my largest debt of £6334 is 5yrs and 11months old on my credit file, so I believe it will be removed off my file in the next couple of months, providing there's no acknowledgement of debt (as there hasn't been in that time). I'm guessing this will improve my score a little.

I also managed to negotiate to pay off a debt of £183 at a lower amount of £93 :T which was the 2 defaults in my name so now we can concentrate on my partners debt and set up some payment plans!

Am I right in thinking that upon settlement of defaults and CCJs you can ask for them to be removed from your credit file?

Also if there not removed and you do settle them, does that mean it doesn't actually improve your credit score but actually prevents the score from falling further?

DCFC79

There are free options for debt management (as pointed out in reply # 2), no need to pay £155 a month to a dm company.

Gooner123

DCFC79 wrote: »

There are free options for debt management (as pointed out in reply # 2), no need to pay £155 a month to a dm company.

Yes, thanks to this forum I've decided to go down the free route.

Tixy

Gooner123 wrote: »

Cheers for the reply.

I think I'm going to try and take care of it by myself.

After doing a lot of reading yesterday about debt, I found that my largest debt of £6334 is 5yrs and 11months old on my credit file, so I believe it will be removed off my file in the next couple of months, providing there's no acknowledgement of debt (as there hasn't been in that time). I'm guessing this will improve my score a little.
it will drop off your file 6 years from date of default, a ccj 6yeads from.date of ccj, regardless of repayment or acknowledgment.
I also managed to negotiate to pay off a debt of £183 at a lower amount of £93 :T which was the 2 defaults in my name so now we can concentrate on my partners debt and set up some payment plans! the defaults will remain but should be updated to show as satisfied.

Am I right in thinking that upon settlement of defaults and CCJs you can ask for them to be removed from your credit file? You can ask but its unlikely they will agree for defaults, for ccjs they will always stay unless you go back to court to attempt to get the judgment set aside.

Also if there not removed and you do settle them, does that mean it doesn't actually improve your credit score but actually prevents the score from falling further?

a settled default looks better than unsatisfied but will still make it very hard to get mainstream credit or mortgage.