Mortgage application / Lack of history

ernest1983

Hi all,
My wife and I are planning to make a joint mortgage application quite soon.
My credit history is fine, but my wife's only ever line of credit has been our joint current account overdraft over the last couple of years.
The clearscore website says that a lack of credit card history can affect things negatively.
So is it worth my wife applying for credit card, just to get some credit activity showing in her report? On the other hand, I've seen that lenders don't like to see recent credit applications.
We plan to apply for a mortgage in about 3 or 4 months.
Any advice much appreciated.

kingstreet

No. Leave well alone.

The recent search will do more damage than the very short-term credit card usage.

ernest1983

Thanks very much. I thought that might be the case, but wanted to make sure.
One more thing please..
I have a lot of available credit. Totally £39,000.
1 credit card typically less than £1000 and fully paid each month.
1 credit card with £2500 balance at 0% until next year, so better to get some savings interest elsewhere.
2 credit cards unused.
2 current accounts with a positive balance but each with £2000 overdraft limits.
Should I consider lowering the limits, or closing a couple of accounts?
Again I'm reading conflicting info about whether a low utilisation is good or bad.
Thanks again

rtho782

Just apply for a mortgage, my history was very thin, my partners much less so, we got accepted.

kingstreet

ernest1983 wrote: »

Thanks very much. I thought that might be the case, but wanted to make sure.
One more thing please..
I have a lot of available credit. Totally £39,000.
1 credit card typically less than £1000 and fully paid each month.
1 credit card with £2500 balance at 0% until next year, so better to get some savings interest elsewhere.
2 credit cards unused.
2 current accounts with a positive balance but each with £2000 overdraft limits.
Should I consider lowering the limits, or closing a couple of accounts?
Again I'm reading conflicting info about whether a low utilisation is good or bad.
Thanks again

This level of micro-management is really not necessary.

I've been doing this 32 years and never worried about unused credit facilities. It's all stuff dreamed up by the CRAs to get you to pay subscriptions, like their made-up "credit scores."

If you have a clean credit history you will usually have no problems getting a mortgage.

ernest1983

Thanks again, hopefully all will go to plan then. Just need to save for a couple more months then we'll get going.
Cheers

looknohands

39k of credit seems pretty nuts to me, but im sure it doesnt matter.

I only recently got a credit card didnt have one before getting my mortgage and I was accepted, I think good consistent income is more important + healthy bank balance.

Edit: I think phone contracts and tv contracts help, I had a few of these in the past so I didn't have zero credit references, oh and electoral roll is important too!

Thrugelmir

ernest1983 wrote: »

but my wife's only ever line of credit has been our joint current account overdraft over the last couple of years.

That's a negative to lenders not a positive. As an indication that you don't manage money very well and have little to no savings.

ernest1983

That's a negative to lenders not a positive. As an indication that you don't manage money very well and have little to no savings.

We've not been using the overdraft.
There is an agreed overdraft limit so it shows on the credit report, but the balance shows as zero because we are not overdrawn.