Outstanding Utility Balances - Mortgage Application

onthemend88

Just had our winter bill come through the post for our gas and electric and it's not a pretty sight!

We have £870 owing on the gas and £400 on the electric which is now also showing as balances on our credit report.

Cannot really afford to pay them in one hit but have increased our monthly payments and will be making additional payments every month.

We will hopefully get the balances cleared by the time we apply for our mortgage but this got me thinking as to how lenders view outstanding balances on utility bills (to add, we have not had any missed payments/pay on time each month)

Thanks in advance

ViolaLass

If they're so different from what you expected, have you checked they're correct? If they're correct, how come they surprised you so much?

onthemend88

ViolaLass wrote: »

If they're so different from what you expected, have you checked they're correct? If they're correct, how come they surprised you so much?

They are correct, the last meter reading they had from us was in October. We then gave them another meter reading at the beginning of the week.

We have just used a lot more gas and electric over the winter than we anticipated.

Robin9

onthemend88 wrote: »

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Cannot really afford to pay them in one hit ....................:)

Do you not have an emergency fund ?

If you can't afford to pay these bills how are you going to be able to pay a mortgage which could well be a £1000 every month.

csgohan4

it will be viewed negatively by lenders, as above, if you can't afford to pay your utility bills, what chance do you have of paying your mortgage with rates possibly increasing in future, they stress test your applications +3-5% of current SVR rates