Late Payment/Default to be applied on Credit File

gareth_ni

Long time lurker on the boards making a first post, apologies in advance for the long winded message.

I am seeking some advise with respect to late payment/default flags which (if not already applied) are due to be added to my wifes file held by relevant agencies. My wife has signed up to Experian and is awaiting pin etc to attain report.

Having been marked as referred for a 2nd mortgage AIP (as initial AIP lapsed), we've been accepted (mortgage offer received) via Nationwide's underwritters. The file issues concern store credit cards that my wife holds with Warehouse (balance = £54 inc late payment) and Dorothy Perkins (£84 inc late payments).

The Warehouse card had 1 late payment charge and or flag applied, this issue was my fault as I stupidly filed away the statement during getting our property to market/surveyed. However the Dorothy Perkins issue I do not believe is our fault, we were told by the underwritter that an account was shown as in arrears, it turned out that the account was in arrears by 3 months (out of character, whether on report or by underwriter), account was also closed down by credit lender around 2nd Mort AIP process (don't know if the dates overlapped). My wife went through her statements and the last one she can find for DP is December, she spoke to the credit lender (Santander) whom noted that statements had been returned/redirected to them, as a cause they refunded the 3 late payment charges (3*£12) and she cleared the remaining balance.

They have since added a further late payment charge (as when the late payments were deducted and balance cleared this was late!!!) and also sent a letter notifying that a default will be placed on her record, they are refusing to refund any further monies (which is not a problem nor a compliant) but a bigger problem for me is that I feel they are accepting some responsibility for the non-delivery of statements thus refunding the initial late payment charges and are refusing to correct her credit file. Do we stand a chance of getting the markers with DP cleared, or is it in vain?

If we don't stand a chance how much of an effect will this have for her/us? Warehouse Account was rectified as soon as late payment statement was received, DP Account already closed and we thought was sorted last week after 3 late payment fees and balance was cleared, but with the further late payment (£12) charge added this was finally cleared yesterday. How serious is the (assuming) settled default flag vs a late payment flag? On the DP account what will its status be? 4*late payments, closed and settled default? We have no real need going forward for credit, other than for insurance premiums we would have gone for monthly premium rather than annual, will that be possible?

gareth_ni

I gather that in time the situation and report will be better/healthy (default etc dropping off after 6 years) but im just very anxious as to what this will mean in the immediate future. We planned on any insurance policies required (Life, Income, Home etc) to be satisfied via monthly DD which is how we currently satisfy our policies but worried that if/when these are credit checked that we'll be rejected.

Other than these late payment issues, we would have (to my knowledge) a healthy record, never missed a mortgage payment, we took out a 5 year personal loan in 2008 via RBS to cover our 5% Deposit for a house which we've never missed a payment (£150 p/m due to end in Dec), I have a CC which I've never missed a payment and has had the balance either cleared on the paying month or within 2 months. Rarely do we ever fall into our approved overdraft (on personal/joint ac's), we've never had debt issues other than in these cases (I guess) a money/credit management issue.