Accidentally screwed-ish my credit file. How long will it last?

Noctu · 20 July 2015 at 1:00PM

Hi,
We have a Nationwide mortgage approx 7 months old (with two other products several years older than that - ported mortgages - but the newest product is 7 months). We wanted to borrow more (£11k) to fund home improvements. Failed at the DiP stage due to credit file. Shocked as we've never been refused credit for anything... so did some digging in my credit file (Experian).

Well I've been a bit of an idiot - a few weeks ago I opened up three new current accounts to benefit from various switching incentives (£100 with Halifax, £120 with HSBC for example). They all hard searched my file, of course... and Experian is showing 5 credit applications in the last month (3 x current accounts, 1 x 0% credit card (which I thought I'd try - bit of a punt - hmm) and then the 1 x Nationwide search).

So I'm guessing this is why Nationwide refused to lend us that bit more we needed!! Kicking myself at the moment, I just didn't think of the impact on my credit file. Lesson learned... (Probably worth mentioning my only associate on my credit file is my husband, who has squeaky clean credit. As did I, before this... searched it prior to applying for mortgage back in September).

So my question is... how long do I need to wait before this drops off my file long enough for Nationwide's purposes - i.e. to affect a (£11k!) mortgage application? I was hoping 6 months but can see that it will still appear for a year - but not affect my Experian credit score?

Just wondering if it's worth trying again in 6/7 months time, or if I would need to wait a full year.

Thanks for your help.

National_Debtline · 20 July 2015 at 2:00PM

Searches will stay on your file for 12months, after this they should come off and help to improve your score. It is difficult to say if your score will completely ‘bounce back’ because your overall score can be influenced by many things at the same time – you will probably need to keep an eye on this after 12months.

Be careful about applying for more credit too quickly as this will add even more searches and damage your credit file further.

Laura
@natdebtline

Noctu · 20 July 2015 at 2:41PM

Thanks Laura. I have no plans for anything which would require a hard search on my credit file luckily - a clean slate for the next six months! (and year if needs be - but am hoping it will only need six months...)

SJshah · 20 July 2015 at 7:06PM

For credit cards, I've been given advice to wait at least 6 months before applying again, and to make it 12 months if you want to play it safe. Depends on the lenders' policies.