Hard Credit Checks

Kweedan

Hi all, I just wanted to get some advice about the hard credit checks that come with Agreement in Principles.

Me and my partner are both first time buyers, have good credit scores and are with Nationwide for our mortgage.

We started in January, did an AIP for a property we got, however sale fell through after 6 weeks. Credit score did go down a bit however it has now recovered and is now higher than before I did it.

Last week we found another property, was for a higher amount than we had an AIP for, so did another one, however it went to best and final offers and we lost out to another bidder (they would not accept our offer without an AIP and we thought we had it in the bag, turns out more offers came in at the last minute that they did not tell us about had we known this we probably would have reconsidered ). I am not sure how this will have bothered my credit score, my report with Clearscore comes out in a few days.

The AIP we now have is a good amount for what we are looking to buy, however my partner is self employed and can send off his books in a few days, which will change the amount that NW will lend us, we hopefully expect it to be a higher amount. We dont want to lose out in the future on another property we love and know we can afford just because we are too scared to perform another hard credit check on ourselves to bump up our AIP a bit higher. It wouldn't be a huge amount, only £10,000, which I believe wouldn't be a problem going by entering our calculations for his new amounts into the mortgage calculator.

I was just wondering how many credit checks is too many, and what would make us look dodgy? Would another one be okay in the coming weeks or months if it came to it, or is it worth waiting the 3 months for this AIP to expire then go again, or holding back altogether until our credit file writes off the last two shoulld we not find anything for the AIP we already have?

Also, for our existing AIP, if we were to use it for a property that we should find in the near future, would it matter that we told them we had found a house and given the address of the place that we did not get?

Next time we do it, we would consider doing a higher amount after taking advice from the mortgage calculators, and then telling them we havent found a property even if we had, just so we can use it again should any future sales go to pop like our previous ones have. Is this a good tactic also?

Would it matter to estate agents if we had an offer accepted on a property and then gave them our new AIP and they can see we could have afforded to pay more for the property?

Any advice/strategies/stories would be much appreciated

Thanks

ACG

There is no such thing as a credit score so just ignore it.
The number of credit checks you have will affect future applications, 1-2 is usually fine 3 onwards and it may be a problem, but it will depend on the rest of your circumstances.

You have an AIP, unless the agents are also asking for proof of deposit they do not know how far shy your AIP is - and even then you could say you are being gifted the difference. Basically, stop doing credit checks until someone confirms your offer has been accepted.

Kweedan

@ACG Hi, thank you very much for this

On my AIP certificate it does say at the value of xxx at 80% LTV - so technically they could work out what my AIP is worth.

We have money spare that we can add to this, so if we were able to find a house for a few grand over our AIP would we be able to just add to our deposit amount, so the loan amount stays the same?

Absolutely that is our plan now, and we wont be doing any more AIPs until we know we definitely have the place, however just wanted to make sure in case something comes up in the near future.

Thanks so much for your help.

Thrugelmir

Kweedan wrote: »

On my AIP certificate it does say at the value of xxx at 80% LTV - so technically they could work out what my AIP is worth.

They won't know how much deposit you have precisely. However if the AIP is in the right ball park. Will demonstrate they you are serious buyers.

Kweedan

Hi, thank you for your help.

Im assuming now then that I will be able to use the AIP that I have now against any offers that we will make in the future, and should we have to pay any more for the property, we will add it to our deposit instead of adding it to how much the Nationwide will have to lend us. I hope this is right

Thanks so much