Newbie

badcredit101

My credit story:

I've been poor with money and, never been on the electoral roll until now. Ive had a credit card for years, maxed it out to £3800 and payed the minimum on this for a couple of years. I have missed multiple payments (due to laziness and no direct debit set up). the last late repayment was in November 2015, I set up a direct debit since then and have paid on time every month. I am about to pay this off. I am in my £2000 overdraft a lot. I have used payday loans previously. I have a £400 credit account open with Barclaycard which I have never used.

My work is contract and sporadic, sometimes I get paid £3000 in a month, sometimes less than £1000. So my debts currently amount to being -£2000 in overdraft and -£150 on a credit card. On the 1st of next month I will completely debt free. I intend to close the both credit card accounts and never be inside my overdraft again.

At the age of 30 now I've decided to get a grip of my finances, time to grow up and take responsibility (a bit late I know!). I'd like to get a mortgage but have never even considered it a possibility with my history but as I read more I find out that my credit history isn't great, it's not as bad as I had thought.

I know Noddle and clearscore are pretty much meaningless but I had a score of 469 and 582 respectively. To be honest much higher than I expected (I thought I would be on 0).

Other than join the electoral roll and cancel the two credit cards what more can I do? Does anyone have advice for me?

Many thanks.

[Deleted User]

Keep the credit cards and use them regularly, clearing in full each month.

Stay out of your overdraft.

And no more payday loans.

badcredit101

The credit card I am about to pay off hasn't actually been used in years and the £400 Barclaycard has never been used. For some reason I was under the impression that if you haven't used an account for 6 months you can no longer use that card (I don't actually have the physical cards anymore). Can anyone shed light on this? Would it be worse to close these and open a new one in order to pay off every month and improve my credit score?

Given this information, am I in dream world thinking I could get a mortgage for an £80k property with a £10k deposit in the next 12 months?

Thanks.

[Deleted User]

Ask if they will reissue cards. If not, you will need to look at opening new accounts.

I would think you're looking at a fair bit longer than 12 months for a mortgage with such recent missed payments and a history of PDLs. A couple of years and a bigger deposit may open up doors.

When you come to apply, make sure you use a good broker who can place the application where it will have most chance of success.

In the meantime, ignore your credit score completely and just demonstrate responsible use of credit.

badcredit101

What about with a guarantor? Would that change thing?

[Deleted User]

It could, but again, you're generally looking at specialist lenders at the sub prime end of the market.

badcredit101

Ok. thanks for that. Is 6 years more realistic for me?

[Deleted User]

Hopefully you could do it a little sooner than 6 years.

badcredit101

You been extremely helpful. Thankyou.

DCFC79

You need to be more strict with yourself, look at your spending and cut back.

More importantly don't focus on your score being whatever score it is, focus on the history side if it as that is what lenders see, they can't see the score for love nor money.