Debt worries

BobbyLit

Hi everyone - can anyone help. My husband and I are both weighted down with credit due to a sudden situation that meant we had to take out every available credit card and loan we could. Our 0%s are now coming to an end and although we can make our payments in the short term we are worried as our work has dropped off due to Brexit fears. I have two questions that I wondered if anyone could advise on

1. I was alerted to a new credit search on Experian this morning (my credit score is now Fair) and when I looked it was listed as an insurance broker and then below it were dozens of individual searches from insurance companies. I haven't applied for insurance and can only think this is my home insurance being renewed, which I thought was with one company. I'm now worried all these searches that I didn't ask for will have an effect on my score? Does anyone know about this?

2. The reason I'm concerned is that we desperately need to find a consolidation loan. We are happy to secure it against our house but despite decades of working really hard, having good credit ratings, never ever missing a repayment on anything and having a lot of equity in our house, loans are now deemed to be not "affordable" for us. We want to use the loan to get rid of our credit card and loan debts but lenders don't see it that way and the debts count against us. Does anyone have any ideas. We are getting desperate and are likely to have to sell our family home if we can't find a sizeable loan soon? Even securing it against the house doesn't seem to overcome the "affordability" issue...

Thank you...

[Deleted User]

The insurance searches are nothing to worry about. Neither is you score from the CRA come to that, as no one sees it and it's not a measure of anything.

If your debts are too high for further borrowing, you need to cut costs and throw your cash at the highest rate debt.

BobbyLit

Thank you. We have cut our costs back as much as we possibly can. We have sold our car and shop from budget stores. We rent rooms out in our house to pay for food and expenses for our children. What we are desperate for is to find a consolidation loan that will pay off all the high interest cards and give us one manageable payment a month - and will also mean we are actually paying off the debts rather than just the interest. We have the equity in our house but borrowing on our mortgage is not an issue. Despite earning a reasonable amount and never having defaulted on any payment to anyone the "affordability" calculator gets us every time....

[Deleted User]

What are your debts, rate and income?

You're very unlikely to get a consolidation loan as the risks are too high for the lenders, but perhaps there are smaller changes you can make.

Thrugelmir

If you need advice. The National Debtline is totally free and impartial.

https://www.nationaldebtline.org/

DCFC79

Your credit ratings aren't seen by lenders so don't pay too much attention to them.

You mention "work has dropped off due to Brexit fears" what fears are these, nothing is known yet what will happen.

SeanG79

Not what you want to hear, but you almost never get approved for a consolidation loan if you NEED one. (This is due to the risk the lender cant be assured you wont keep the existing debt on top of the new loan.

It is almost never a good thing to convert unsecured debt into secured debt by using the mortgage.

As much as what it's not what you want to do, if you cannot afford to pay off the current minimum payments, it is probably better to go into a DMP (speak to Stepchange or another free debt charity for advice)

BobbyLit

Thank you everyone that's really helpful. We earn £4000 a month between us, which almost covers our rent, direct debits for council tax, electricity etc and our loan and credit card repayments. We have two loans, an old HP agreement and nine credit cards between us. Five are still on 0%, two have some 0% and some 21% and two have just come off 0% and are now 19%. We can just about manage to pay all the minimum payments but our work has dropped off while people assess the current situation. It will probably pick up but we don't know if we can hold out that long. We have cut our spending down to the bare minimum, just living off a small amount we make by renting a room out. Even without the work dropping off this isn't a long term solution - we need to find a way of getting out of this hole and thought a large secured loan against the house would be the answer but it doesn't sound likely....thank you for all your help

Thrugelmir

You say you rent but own a property?

SeanG79

Thrugelmir wrote: »

You say you rent but own a property?

They let out rooms in their home to lodgers...

BobbyLit

Sorry yes - should have said let not rent...