Where can I get a mortgage with black mark on credit report?

AimeeLR12

My brother in law has a black mark on his credit report from an unpaid phone bill. This will disappear next February as it will be 6 years ago, but they want to buy a house now. They have been offered a mortgage with Aldermore as they only look back 3 years into your credit rating so they would give them the mortgage but their interest rates are so much higher (£200 per month difference in repayments). Does anyone know about any other companies who only look back 3 years and who are lenient with past credit issues?
Thanks

MortgageMamma

Hi There

there must be more to it than a missed phone bill to be placed with Aldermore. When you say "black mark" do you mean a default or a county court judgement? there are some lenders that totally ignore problems occurring with telecoms suppliers. Is your family member using a mortgage broker? if so, and that really is the only reason for being placed with this lender consider getting a second opinion.

AimeeLR12

It's down as a default. No they don't have a broker we just heard about aldermore so applied with them to see if they would get accepted and they did but repayments were too high. My dad is an accountant so knows a little bit about it so we are trying to avoid a broker.

Zeebs90

My partner has a default approx 3 years old and we have received an offer from Halifax, we have a 75% LTV which I think helped. We used a broker who could advise which lenders we would have a chance with.

MaebyJade

Get a broker is the advice most people will offer you. If it’s just one default from that long ago there will be other lenders available. I had 2 defaults which were 5+ years old and had no problem getting a mortgage with Halifax using a broker.

chelseablue

My partner had a default from 2011 and Halifax accepted us in late 2015


It may have helped that my credit rating is excellent and we put a large deposit down.


We used a broker and I would definitely recommend they use one too

AimeeLR12

Thank you we will try Halifax. Does a broker not cost money? Would it make a difference if we applied through a broker to the outcome of the application? I've never used a broker before always done it myself but we've never had any credit issues.

chelseablue

We never paid our broker anything, Halifax paid them.


I wouldn't just go and apply with Halifax (or any lender) as lots of applications could damage your credit rating further.

AimeeLR12

If we just go through the initial process of asking how much we could borrow (decision in principal) but without doing a credit search would that affect the credit rating?

amnblog

Sounds like your decision to avoid a broker is projecting to be expensive.

rtho782

In this situation I really would just use a broker.

Even if they charge you £500 that's peanuts in the scale of house buying, and if they manage to get you a 0.5% lower rate that could easily save you £50 a month - paying their fees in less than a year.