A cinder in the snow chance ?

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My brother and his fiance are looking to move. They have a house, he thinks roughly £40k equity in it. His fiance has above average credit history, my brother has reasonably poor (although has worked hard to improve this).

After I managed to pull his head out of the sand (he ignored letters etc.. in the past) he obtained his credit report and tells me he has 2 cases of arrears, 1 defaulted account and one arrangement to pay. However, these are all settled and due to drop off his account in 2015. They did have high credit card balances however have paid these off and both currently owe no debt (aside from current mortgage) which has been paid on time in full for over 7 years now.

His fiance has a good steady job around £27k however my brother works as a contractor and has only been in current role for 5 months but he thinks his pay is around the £26k mark (he is paid hourly). They have no children, however have said they're going to try for one as soon as they are married.

I did tell him to open and account and write this himself!! However... seems big sister to the rescue again.

I know they won't know until they try to apply for another mortgage, however, has anyone has been in similar situation? Any advice for brother appreciated... if you have questions might take me a little while to respond until I speak to him again.

Cheers.

Cinder in snow do you think?

ACG

Contractor and a bad credit - i think they need to head straight for a broker as this will be difficult to place on the high street.

I would avoid estate agent brokers personally. Also non high street lenders doesnt mean high rates, it just means less stringent criteria and manually underwritten rather than by a computer.

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ACG wrote: »

Contractor and a bad credit - i think they need to head straight for a broker as this will be difficult to place on the high street.

I would avoid estate agent brokers personally. Also non high street lenders doesnt mean high rates, it just means less stringent criteria and manually underwritten rather than by a computer.

Thanks ACG. Is there a reputable website I could direct them to in order to view details of various reliable brokers? Meant to say brother is now all of a sudden fired up about credit history (think he thought it was worse although I still think it's not that great but am reserving that judgement ) and has read about searches on his file and thinks this may be detrimental?

I'll ask them to try with a broker first.

ACG

I would say ask friends/family.
Alternatively you could try google or freeindex.co.uk (there are reviews on that site, but take them with a pinch of salt as it could be friends of the broker giving the reviews).

I think you also need to avoid fee free brokers here as this wont be easy and my experience is that you get what you pay for (although that doesnt mean the more you pay the better you get... just to sit on the fence).

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ACG wrote: »

I would say ask friends/family.
Alternatively you could try google or freeindex.co.uk (there are reviews on that site, but take them with a pinch of salt as it could be friends of the broker giving the reviews).

I think you also need to avoid fee free brokers here as this wont be easy and my experience is that you get what you pay for (although that doesnt mean the more you pay the better you get... just to sit on the fence).

Thanks again for your advice. I have actually told him to read and fully research the mortgage section of mse also so hopefully he'll get there. I really do hope they're able to do this, oh for the hindsight of being silly with finances when you're young (been there myself so not judging!) It's such an important thing to teach your kids, what happens if you don't pay can affect you for a long time to come...