I need to rebuild, going to need advice :)

mattwilson1981

I'm fully aware that this makes me look totally foolish...

Hello there, back in 2012 I was in a good position. I owned my own 4 bed detached house with my now ex-partner. Had no credit apart from the mortgage and we were both on around £25k a year. We had rather an acrimonious split and I ended up having to leave. I had no assets to take from the house and had to start from scratch.

I took out a £4k credit card and used that as the deposit on a rented house and to buy furnishings as I had two children to have with me half of the week.

Despite having my children half of the week, within a year she had begun to claim CSA payments from me so I was having £250 a month going to her leaving me with less and less to pay my bills. I ended up having an emotional breakdown and went to live with my brother for a few months, leaving everything to tick along without me. Bills went unpaid, I lost the deposit on the rented house which should have been paid back to the credit card. The house was sold but the amount of equity I have left is just under £2K I have now come out of the darkness and have a great new jobs on £41k plus bonuses and I want to rebuild my life. I've looked at my credit report and can see where my credit card has defaulted after being sold to another company, a debt of £100 and a debt of £65 are showing up on there. Obviously these are highlighted bright red and my experian "score" is just in the very poor.

I'm going to phone these companies on payday and settle those payments even though they show as defaulted. Will that make ANY difference at all to my credit history. I will also be contacting the company that owns the debt from the credit card and will begin to make payments to clear that.

Can anybody give me an indication of how much impact this will have. I want to buy a house again within the next couple of years and obviously this is a barrier.

[Deleted User]

Settled defaults will look much better to a lender than unsettled. But you still have repairing to do, by rebuilding a good history.

The easiest way is through sensible use of a credit card. Also ensure you're on the electoral roll and that all other details are accurate, including any financial associates.

mattwilson1981

Thanks for that, I know the number itself on experian is pretty much nonsense but would that number increase once those are settled?

Last March I took out motor finance and am paying that every month without fail which I'm sure will help.

I will be looking at a credit card to rebuild finance which makes sense, is it still the case that if I say; use it for my food shopping once a week and then pay off the balance at the end of the month it is best. Or am I wrong on that front?

I appreciate guidance

DCFC79

Who knows if it will increase but that shouldn't matter, what matters is its accurately reported when you pay it off (wont be instant but check after say a month).