Will lots of current accounts affect mortgage application?

matttye

I did a search for this but couldn't find anything; if I knew the exact words to search for I might have been able to, as I'm sure someone must have asked this before.

If I open a few current accounts purely for the monthly interest / bonus payments, no overdraft facilities on any of them, could this raise red flags with a mortgage lender?

I have three at the moment but thinking of opening at least another two. That said I can close one of my accounts that doesn't pay any interest and has no money in it, but that is my longest owned bank account so not sure if that's a good idea or not (owned that for ~6 years and the others for less than a year).

I won't be applying for a mortgage for about a year.

Thanks

Wh05apk

Unless you have dozens, I can't see it making much difference, don't over analyse the process, just concentrate on the basics, make sure you are on the voters roll, ensure all credit is paid on time (get a credit check on yourself to ensure it is recorded correctly) and ideally have a credit card to build up your credit profile.

matttye

Great thanks!

Dave_the_Ginger_Cat

When I applied for my mortgage, I held about 8, six of which were with another organisation. All well run, all active.


They were all for different purposes and all was well. If you have multiple which are not in a good state of repair, I'd make an effort to tidy & reduce

uzubairu

When we were applying for a mortgage last year (with First Direct), I had 7 current accounts with a total of £35K in them (purely for interest) and had to explain to the advisor the reason for having them.
They were OK with that and it didn't affect our application.

matttye

I have two five year old defaults and a five year old arrangement, but all of my accounts have been squeaky clean since. Debt free since 2010.

The defaults dropping off should coincide with me finally having saved enough for a deposit, just trying to do what I can in the meantime to increase my chances.

Thanks

FreddieFrugal

The only 'problem' is that having multiple accounts means having to send a lot of statements to prove proof of deposit. As these tend to involve moving money around e.g £5000 in vantage accounts., especially if they're recently opened accounts.

I had big faff because in one example: I'd moved money from an ISA with halifax, into current account with halifax, Closed ISA to get the interest paid straight away, moved money from halifax current account to Lloyds vantage account (full one that I'd already made a payment to so quicker than setting up new recipient) then transferred to another (empty) Lloyds vantage.

That required a lot of faff, printing and visits to banks to get the audit trail sorted. All because it was only a short time before application.