Re-mortgage with history of poor credit

Gracegal

Hello,

I'm brand new to this so apologies if it's in the wrong place!

My partner and I bought our house when we were pretty young, we got it on a 35 years fixed term (5 years) in 2008 when interest rates were high. Since coming out of this fixed term we have been paying the SVR now 3.74%. Our loan to value is around 85% due to being on such high interest rates all this time (particularly in the first 5 years).

Unfortunately due to complete naivety, stupidity and slight money problems when we where younger we defaulted on a couple of accounts (one joint account and myself a catalogue account). So as you can imagine quite a few missed payments also. These defaults were cleared and are now 6 years old. We have since missed the odd payment but none in the last 2 years. I have looked at my credit score and It is 'good' (400 out of 700). Haven't looked at my partners but his has always been better than mine so imagine it still is. I got a car on pcp earlier this year, opened a new current account and got a 0% credit card to transfer my balance from another, so have had quite a few searches in the last 6 months. We have about 5k debt in credit cards between us.

Anyway, we are looking to remortgage. What do you think our chances would be of getting a decent deal? Or is it the best we can get now? We are also wanting to move house in the next couple of years. We earn around 56k between us annually.

Thanks in advance 😊

minimike2

As long as affordability isn't an issue (in the mortgage lenders eyes, not yours) and you meet scoring (dependent on individual lenders how they will "score" you - Your credit "score" described above is meaningless) then what you describe should allow you to access normal high street rates. Have you also explored looking at a new deal with your current lender?

Gracegal

Thanks for your response... No, haven't discussed it with them. Currently with the Halifax. wasn't sure if they'd have to do the 'credit search' to give me any idea on what I could get.

minimike2

I am sure they do not credit search for a product transfer.

Still worth looking what what else is available in the market too.

muhandis

If I were in your place, I would eschew the hassle involved in a remortgage with another lender and go for a 2-3 year fix with Halifax. As far as I know, most lenders don't recheck affordability or credit for a product switch long as there is no change in loan amount or length of mortgage.

And then over the fixed period make sure that our credit ratings are squeaky clean so that I have more flexibility to remortgage at the end of the fixed term.

Hope that helps.

Gracegal

Thanks for Your help. I'll have a look into this.