Halifax credit searches

sugarbabe84

I was wondering if Halifax typically do another credit search before they release mortgage funds?

I notice back in April they did two hard credit searches before they approved the mortgage.

kingstreet

Halifax has a "live" system which carries out a search whenever a milestone is reached on an application, such as receipt of valuation, ahead of issue of offer and receipt of certificate of title.

These are usually soft searches, but we have had questions asked of applicants as a result. For example, we were once asked why the credit card balance was £380 higher than the balance on the application. The card was used for your valuation fee was our response and we'd already committed to repaying the card balance on or before completion, so it made no difference.

Halifax takes its new credit data feed between 11th and 14th of the month so each application updates to that data once something takes place, as mentioned above.

sugarbabe84

kingstreet wrote: »

Halifax has a "live" system which carries out a search whenever a milestone is reached on an application, such as receipt of valuation, ahead of issue of offer and receipt of certificate of title.

These are usually soft searches, but we have had questions asked of applicants as a result. For example, we were once asked why the credit card balance was £380 higher than the balance on the application. The card was used for your valuation fee was our response and we'd already committed to repaying the card balance on or before completion, so it made no difference.

Halifax takes its new credit data feed between 11th and 14th of the month so each application updates to that data once something takes place, as mentioned above.

Thanks. This is really helpful. One of my special conditions is to clear the credit card balance before completion.

I paid the full balance last week but I noticed it only gets updated on Experian on the 13th.

kingstreet

One of the banes of brokers' lives is the popular myth that the credit system operates in real time.

"I'll pay that off now, so you don't need to know about it."

No. I'll need to mark it "to be repaid on or before completion" because chances are it will still be on your credit file in six weeks as outstanding.

Credit providers are very slow in updating records and mortgage lenders don't take new data every day, so it's possible when you apply for a mortgage, the credit data the lender sees might be two months old or more.

It wouldn't be the first time I've had an affordability fail because "I changed my car last month and it looks like my old credit and my new credit are both showing as outstanding."

Go figure...

sugarbabe84

kingstreet wrote: »

One of the banes of brokers' lives is the popular myth that the credit system operates in real time.

"I'll pay that off now, so you don't need to know about it."

No. I'll need to mark it "to be repaid on or before completion" because chances are it will still be on your credit file in six weeks as outstanding.

Credit providers are very slow in updating records and mortgage lenders don't take new data every day, so it's possible when you apply for a mortgage, the credit data the lender sees might be two months old or more.

It wouldn't be the first time I've had an affordability fail because "I changed my car last month and it looks like my old credit and my new credit are both showing as outstanding."

Go figure...

Thanks. I just hope this won’t be an issue for me. If it does become an issue, I hope my broker will reach out to get confirmation of payment.