New mobile phone contract between mortgage offer and completion

pinkteapot

I know the general advice is to avoid any credit checks / new agreements unless absolutely unavoidable, but I'm going to ask anyway...

Joint mortgage, 16% LTV, neither of us has any debts and we both have excellent credit scores. Both in permanent jobs. Mortgage repayments will be <10% of our net income.

I really need to switch mobile phone networks as following a relocation my provider has no coverage in the area I now work in. There's only one network that does which everyone here uses.

Mortgage offer has been issued but completion won't be for a couple of months as it's a new-build under construction. Given that we were so well within affordability and LTV criteria, will one credit check on my file and a change of mobile phone provider really do that much damage?

If it might I can pay-as-you-go until after completion and then take a contract. It's better to go straight onto contract to benefit from new customer offers, but obviously the difference is a price worth paying if it might scupper the mortgage...

MEM62

I cannot see it having any impact.

sal_III

You shouldn't have problems with the mortgage.

Unless you are after unlimited data, there is likely a cheaper PAYG than a contract, but I guess seasoned MSE like you has done the research. Don't restrict the search to the 4 host networks, all of them have a plethora of MVNOs which are generally better value for money. You can find a full list here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_Kingdom_mobile_virtual_network_operators

Also if you have poor reception at home look for one that offers "wifi calling" which will essentially use your WiFi as medium to carry the call, rather than the GSM mast.

pinkteapot

Cheers both. We have always avoided new credit pre-completion and wouldn't do something like taking out a loan, but I did wonder if switching mobile phone provider would be make or break if we weren't borderline for lending in the first place.

I'm on O2 and want to switch to EE as they're the only network with reasonable coverage here.

I will be getting a large data allowance as we're moving into a new-build and may be without phone/internet for some time. I work from home regularly and study online, so our mobiles will be used as wifi hotspots in the gap without home broadband. EE's 4G signal strength is good enough to get a sufficiently fast connection. I can downgrade my data package again in the future once everything's settled. On a glance a 12-month sim-only contract looks better than PAYG, but as I'll hopefully only need high data for a few months at worst I will price up the two options properly.

Cheers for the tip on MVNOs though - I hadn't thought of that even though I know my mum's Tesco Mobile is actually on O2!