Card negotiation and credit file implications

debtcruncher

Hi everyone

This is my first post, so apologies if this query has been covered previously.

I am drowning in unsustainable credit card debt, and the only avenue I want to explore at the moment is to contact a couple of the card companies and say I can't afford to pay them, and can they agree a low interest rate/repayment. I've looked at 0% cards before but they never give me enough credit limit to bother with...probably a tenth of my total debt.

So my question is, would these negotiations, and any subsequent agreement, appear on my credit file and impact future mortgage applications etc?

Cheers

Tixy

If you are just calling to ask if they would consider lowering your interest rate - that wouldn't have any impact on your credit file (and occasionally lenders will drop the rate by a couple of %).

If you intend to tell them you cannot afford repayments and want to pay less than the minimum payment and then subsequently do pay less than the minimum payment (even with their agreement) then yes that will impact on your credit file.
They may mark an arrangement to pay on your credit file (usually if you only want to lower payments for up to 6months), or may enter a default on the agreement on your file.

Your creditors are generally less likely to agree reduced repayments/reduced interest if you are only asking a couple of creditors out of a large number to accept lower payments, and are intending to pay the others according to the agreement.