Mortgage advice needed...Have been offered a sub-prime mortgage

sparklemotion

I have been to see a broker (£299 fee) who has found me a mortgage deal with Kensington Mortgages. The rate is 3.44% fixed over two years. He suggests that we remortgage at this time... I'll give you some useful details to give you an idea of what I need...

We have a deposit of £100,000, no current mortgage and have been told he can get us a mortgage of £198,000 with Kensington.

Myself
29 years old in full time employment
Income of £38,500
A CCJ from 02/2009. This was satisfied in 11/2011
A default which will come off my file in August 2013
No loans/credit cards
"Good" Experian credit rating

My Partner
22 years old in full time employment
Recently employed (just 1 payslip thus far)
Income of £18,000
No adverse credit (excellent rating)
No loans/credit cards
"Excellent" credit rating

We have been told that my partner will need 3 payslips before we are eligible for this mortgage deal.

What I want to know is
a) Am I restricted to a sub-prime mortgage until the CCJ is off my file?
b) Does it matter, with the rate of 3.44% being offered?
c) Is it worth talking to another mortgage broker and seeing if I can get a better deal?

Thanks for your time. It means a lot.

sparklemotion

sorry forgot to add... Purchase price will be £320,000 so we have a LTV of 68.75%

Katzen

Is that sub-prime? Our situation is complicated by keeping a mortgage on one property whilst buying another but our rate is 4.35%

sparklemotion

Apparently so... MB confirmed when I asked and said that no credit searches are conducted with this mortgage.

Senior_Paper_Monitor

The following comment is without knowing your full circumstances and checking a mass of lender criteria ...

Kensington (and the specific mortgage you are being offered) are not 'sub prime' - this is a near prime product (Kensington who used to be primarily a specialist adverse lender are prime and near prime only these days).

The benefit of going to Kensington is that you (apparently) clearly meet their criteria - they are not the cheapest, but neither are they ridiculously expensive.

It is totally incorrect to say there are no credit searches conducted with this mortgage - Kensington certainly take credit searches and their underwriting is in fine detail (very criteria driven) but they do not use automated scoring (there are a number of small lenders that also do not use auto scoring, but they all do searches).

On the information you have given - and subject to the full story (such as amount of CCJ) - I suspect, based on your required LTV, there may be some lenders out there who would take the case at a slightly lower rate (but the risk of a failed application will increase).

sparklemotion

The CCJ was for £1,855.