Mortgage Application - Undeclared Commitment

BOBBIs_MUMMY

Help please!!

Husband and I are currently applying for a mortgage through a broker with Nationwide. The details were emailed to Nationwide yesterday to see if we could get an agreement in principal. They have declined to loan us the amount we asked as they say we have an undeclared commitment. They won't tell the broker or anyone what this is due to data protection and we are oblivious to what the undeclared commitment is. My husband has a credit card but this hasn't been used in almost 2 years and has a £0 balance. Our broker has suggested we get a credit report to see if it will throw up any light as to what the commitment might be. He mentioned an Experian report, can anyone point me in the right direction please as all I can find is the free trials which I don't want to sign up to and will the report take long to come back??

Many thanks

Crashandburn

Could be something like interest free credit, car lease, store card etc. Some lenders systems are quite sensitive.

I like the reports from https://www.checkmyfile.com

Yes you have to sign up for it but cancel within 30 days and you're not charged. This will give you Equifax and Call-Credit reports which 'should' have the same information on them

Good luck

lee111s

Sign up for the free trial and get your report. Simples.

sockpuppet

You can get a one-off statutory report from Experian for £2

I dont have the link off-hand but if you google 'experian statutory report' you should find it.

Dont pay for any so-called 'credit scores' as these are not used by any lenders

When i did this mine was there and could be printed off there and then. With my husbands (for some reason) he had to wait for a PIN no in the post then log back in to print his off, but this only took a few days

holly_hobby

Yes, checkmyfile is my preferred and most thorough CRA check, as it is a multi agency check, so amongst the public domain stuff, will display your records with equifax, experian and call credit data. It is a free 30 day trial, but is super easy to cancel on line - and I highly recommend it.

My feeling is that you didn't declare the credit card at all, as it has nil balance so didn't see it as relevant, however it isl a (rolling) credit facility that you have and will have access to post completion - so it must be included in any financial assessment, as even with a nil balance, they will still consider and take account of the amount of credit that is available to you, and how it may impact on affordability (should you utilise the facility in the future).

They have actually declined based on "non-disclosure" - meaning that generally your bridge is burned with them, due to the nature of and reason for the decline - but I would have your broker try and plead your nievenes as to why even a nil balance CC has to be disclosed .... can't promise but worth a go if you still fancy them.

If not, in your next app, where it asks for current loan and credit commitments - declare the ccard, but where it asks for the os balance you simply write £0 - TBH can't think what the broker was doing submitting the app without dealing with this (unless of course you didn't disclose the facility to him either, thinking it didn't matter - which is understandible).

Hope this helps

Holly

BOBBIs_MUMMY

sockpuppet wrote: »

You can get a one-off statutory report from Experian for £2

I dont have the link off-hand but if you google 'experian statutory report' you should find it.

Dont pay for any so-called 'credit scores' as these are not used by any lenders

When i did this mine was there and could be printed off there and then. With my husbands (for some reason) he had to wait for a PIN no in the post then log back in to print his off, but this only took a few days

Thanks I found that later this afternoon, but if they have to send a pin to access the report that means it won't be till next week. Looks like they like to get you to sign up for the trial as the result is instant.

BOBBIs_MUMMY

holly_hobby wrote: »

Yes, checkmyfile is my preferred and most thorough CRA check, as it is a multi agency check, so amongst the public domain stuff, will display your records with equifax, experian and call credit data. It is a free 30 day trial, but is super easy to cancel on line - and I highly recommend it.

My feeling is that you didn't declare the credit card at all, as it has nil balance so didn't see it as relevant, however it isl a (rolling) credit facility that you have and will have access to post completion - so it must be included in any financial assessment, as even with a nil balance, they will still consider and take account of the amount of credit that is available to you, and how it may impact on affordability (should you utilise the facility in the future).

They have actually declined based on "non-disclosure" - meaning that generally your bridge is burned with them, due to the nature of and reason for the decline - but I would have your broker try and plead your nievenes as to why even a nil balance CC has to be disclosed .... can't promise but worth a go if you still fancy them.

If not, in your next app, where it asks for current loan and credit commitments - declare the ccard, but where it asks for the os balance you simply write £0 - TBH can't think what the broker was doing submitting the app without dealing with this (unless of course you didn't disclose the facility to him either, thinking it didn't matter - which is understandible).

Hope this helps

Holly

I'm not sure if the broker declared the credit card or not to be honest or if he knew we had one. We were mortgage free, but took another on 2 years ago and since then haven't touched the credit card just sits in the drawer. Even when we did use it we cleared the amount owed every month via a direct debit to our current account. Hopefully we can continue with them as paid booking fee. Thanks for your help

holly_hobby

No problem .. x

The aim is to convince the lender that your non-mentioning of the ccard in your app , was not a deliberate act of concealment, but rather a completely genuine assumption (on your part), that as it had a nil balance (and sparodically used, and always paid in full when ever utilised), that it wasn't relevant/appropriate to include it in the details of outstanding commitments requested. Its a long shot .... but its true and a reasonable explanation as to why you didn't list it, and if everything else with the app is bob on with an otherwise good score - the UW may be prepared to re-consider.

Get your broker on the case, whom if experienced will know how to play the tune.

Hope this helps

Holly x

somethingcorporate

Is the expectation really that you need to declare zero balance credit cards?

Sounds really odd to me as it is not a commitment.

holly_hobby

No, you'd think that I know, but the details of the credit limit (and any os balance), is recorded on the indvidual with CRAs. And so although currently nil balance os (which will be displayed with the CRAs), there remains the availability of the credit facility , that if utilised will natuarally have an impact on the affordability and possible future maintenance of the mge (depending on reqd CC payments etc) - which is why I think its the non-disclosure of hte credit card facility, that has caused the decline for non-declared commitment .

Its always best to disclose everything, let the lender decide what isn't important - then the applicant cant be declined on non-disclosure. (assuming that of course there aren't things they haven't a clue about ie old adverse etc,)

H

BOBBIs_MUMMY

somethingcorporate wrote: »

Is the expectation really that you need to declare zero balance credit cards?

Sounds really odd to me as it is not a commitment.

Until we do the report tonight we honestly can't think what else it could be, maybe the results will highlight something other than the credit card!