More lenient lending?

Legacy_user

My friend and his girlfriend have just been accepted for a 95% mortgage even though he had adverse credit from 2 years ago plus a current maxed out credit card. They recieved their offer within 2 weeks, it's all been pretty straight forward. I was surprised as I thought Santander would be extra picky being a high street lender? Does it sound a bit more lenient than expected?

amnblog

Full mortgage offer, or a decision in principle?

System

Full mortgage offer! Contracts arrived in the morning and they were signed and posted back same day!

amnblog

We have no way of knowing another applicants full circumstances.


This should not be taken as an indication that Santander are not a conservative lender - they are and would not be an automatic choice for applicants with credit issues.

System

Not assuming that at all, just surprised and pleased that they got the offer. Both he and I thought they'd be declined on his history. Although she works for a bank (not Santander) and has a perfect file so perhaps that helped their case I guess.

kingstreet

Is the adverse visible on the credit file of the CRA used by Santander?

System

I have no idea. I would assume it's quite likely... Perhaps 2 years is historical enough, if so. Would you say?

ACG

At 95% LTV 2 years is difficult to overcome.

Santander would not be my first choice personally. It is diffuclt to say without knowing a lot more really. But if everything else stacks up, there is an existing relationship with the bank it may be possible to get an application over the line.

System

Out of interest ACG, how many years good behaviour would you need to get the go ahead with a high street lender?

kingstreet

Two years? No, nowhere near long enough.

If it's visible, Santander don't do this case, IMHO.

I suspect it's not visible on their credit reference data as I alluded to earlier.

David_White

You've not said what adverse credit they had 2 years ago.

From my experience every consumer has a different notion of what "bad" credit is.

I've spoken to people that think they have horrendous credit when it reality there's just the odd missed payment many years ago and on the flip side I've spoken to people with many defaults/CCJ's etc that don't feel they're much of a risk.

Perhaps your friend just didn't have quite as bad credit as they thought.