Great Financial Situation - Can't get mortgage until I'm 28?

exhaustedbrit

I've recently turned 22 and am now living with my partner, we are living in an apartment together which is private. I have a very good salary and have been in full time employment since I was 16 years old, but since the turn of my 18th birthday I began taking on loans and credit cards without fully understanding credit or how they worked. Now, 4 years later I have seen and repaid £30,000 of personal debt and have watched my credit score wander all over the place.

The irony is, I'm now the most financially comfortable I have been my entire life. I have a HSBC credit card with a 32 month balance transfer and £7,000 limit that I was accepted for despite equifax showing my credit score as 110 in December. The issue is, other accounts which I had arrangements to pay were transferred to debt collectors such as Lowell, Link Financial and others.

I'm happy to say that I have fully repaid all of these debts this month and financially I couldn't be better. The trouble is one of the company registered a default (my fault entirely, lesson learned) against me in April because my arrangement to pay resulted in me being in total 4 payments behind as per the original agreement. This debt is fully settled and I am no longer in arrears with anybody.

But I'm worried and anxious now about my future when it comes to owning a property. At 22 years old I have a salary of £40,000 and all my hard work to repay my debts and business failures have paid off. But now it feels like despite my ability to comfortably repay a mortgage on a property, I will not have the opportunity at all until I am 28 years old.

Is this true? I have only 1 default on my credit profile, no CCJs, no IVAs, no bankruptcies.

Does anyone have experience securing a mortgage with a default, and should my credit history improve, will the default be a shadow casting over it all?

ACG

Speak to a broker, you will probably need a 15% deposit or wait for another 6 months but you will not need to wait for 6 years.

kingstreet

No. Time and level of deposit are great healers.

You can have a mortgage tomorrow at a higher rate with a higher deposit.

if you wait until the default is a couple of years old, there will be lower rates and lower deposits.

Speak to an independent broker for guidance/timescale mapping.

exhaustedbrit

Thanks for your responses, I'll prepare a generous deposit - my default will be at least 3 years old when I'm looking to buy. Thanks again!