Inherited mortgage-free property - poor credit and CCJ’s

bennydaisey

You have no mortgage and a child. Bringing up a family is costly. Consider whether the home improvements are simply wanted or necessary. If they're just wanted then you are going to have to repay with interest. Are the improvements worth the monthly pay back or are they cosmetic? You've struggled with money before so make sure you're not heading that way again.

Mb2kmoney

I get what you’re saying benny, but I’ve generalised the improvements side a bit. We actually have prior planning permission to add a new side extension. It would give us the room we need as a growing family, but on the finance side it should be a sound investment as it would significantly improve the value of the place

GDB2222

Mb2kmoney wrote: »

I get what you’re saying benny, but I’ve generalised the improvements side a bit. We actually have prior planning permission to add a new side extension. It would give us the room we need as a growing family, but on the finance side it should be a sound investment as it would significantly improve the value of the place

Most home improvements do not increase the value of the property by as much as the money spent. Yours may be different, of course, but it's not obvious it's a 'sound investment'. Are there any comparable properties around, ie some with and some without a side extension?

The other thing to think about is ownership of the property. If you split up with your partner, how will the property value be split after say 5 or 10 years of your paying the mortgage? Also, is it fair to saddle your partner with £15k of your debts?

getmore4less

Mb2kmoney wrote: »

I get what you’re saying benny, but I’ve generalised the improvements side a bit. We actually have prior planning permission to add a new side extension. It would give us the room we need as a growing family, but on the finance side it should be a sound investment as it would significantly improve the value of the place

It could just wait till you have a few years history of not messing up and paying down most/all of your current debts.

That way the costs will be lower to do the work as you should get better rates.

Get all your credit records and tidy up what's there.
do a review of all your debt prepare a budget(you can keep to) that will start paying them off,
no new credit
make all payments on time.

Review in 12 months.

Mb2kmoney

Thanks for all replies. I appreciate all views and comments.
The ‘saddling’ comment is one of the main reasons I’ve waited so long to even consider reaching out for advice. My history wouldn’t exactly demonstrate it, but I’m a proud / personal guy. I don’t want others to suffer for my mistakes and don’t want to shirk responsibilities either.
My partner has been clear that she would want to be able to help in this way, and that it would be a potential quicker way to do that while also fast tracking the house stuff.
You can probably sense from the messages here that I’m not completely ‘sold’ on it. I certainly wouldn’t be if it was all about me sorting debt. However, if there is logic and minimal risk in everything being sorted at the same time, I think it’s at least worth considering and researching

getmore4less

Mb2kmoney wrote: »

Thanks for all replies. I appreciate all views and comments.
The ‘saddling’ comment is one of the main reasons I’ve waited so long to even consider reaching out for advice. My history wouldn’t exactly demonstrate it, but I’m a proud / personal guy. I don’t want others to suffer for my mistakes and don’t want to shirk responsibilities either.
My partner has been clear that she would want to be able to help in this way, and that it would be a potential quicker way to do that while also fast tracking the house stuff.
You can probably sense from the messages here that I’m not completely ‘sold’ on it. I certainly wouldn’t be if it was all about me sorting debt. However, if there is logic and minimal risk in everything being sorted at the same time, I think it’s at least worth considering and researching

Take 12 month on that considering and research while you sort out the where you are.

You said

I have a bad rating and some CCJ’s that frankly I’ve been too scared to try and tackle since my situation had improved (largely since meeting her!)

and

The stuff I know about are two CCJ’s - one around 3k and the other under 1k. Other than that, it’s defaults on historic payments and some active chasing from collection agencies relating to either PD or similar.
.....
10-15k (somewhat guessing - I need to ‘man up’ and do a proper search to find out what the true picture is)

I think you need to get at least the basics sorted,

CCJ satisfied and all the other debts counted(no more guesses) under control and a solid working budget in place.


With being mortgage free have a decent salary and stable job you should be able to get things tidy in say 3 months have a good idea when the credit report tidy up will complete when debts will be satisfied and a run of no late/missed payments keeping to the budget.

Then you can assess the level of debt you can take on.

ACG

As you say, man up get your credit reports in front of a broker.
A decent broker will tell you what is and is not possible. They may butter it up a little bit if it is quite bad but most brokers are self employed so will not be "wasting" their time on an application that will not go anywhere.

I do not think it is that bad from what you have said but we see this sort of thing all the time. Some people have a default for £50 and think it is the end of the world, other people have 15 defaults and think it is not that bad.