Reduce credit card limits or leave as is for mortgage application?

pedgepuk

I've a remortgage application in the next few months to hopefully get more funds for home improvements. Over the past months I've been reducing my short-term credit card debt on 4 different 0% balance transfer cards. I've another 2 cards for day-to-day usage.

I've a total of £80k credit available to me for all combined cards which is extremely high, and peaked at 22% credit utilisation which is now at 17%. I've read mixed advice that reducing it may be seen by lenders that there is a higher risk as they are unaware why the limits were reduced or that I'm exposed to too much credit, and other advice being that lenders will only take the credit utilisation into account. 

Question is, should I reduce the credit limits on some of these cards before the mortgage application or would this look negative on my credit file?

[Deleted User]

Leave your limits as they are, especially with that amount of debt.  Work on lowering the debt before your application.

thegentleway

Don't reduce credits card limits: it will affect your mortgage application negatively as it will increase your credit utilisation (one of the more influencial factors). Experian says you should aim to keep credit utilisation below 30% so you're fine from that perspective. However lenders prefer to see a debt-to-income ratio smaller than 36%, with no more than 28% of that debt going towards servicing your mortgage so depending on your income, you might have to decrease your credit card debt further to have a favourable debt-to-income ratio. Although presumably with £80k credit available, your income is probably large enough.

Malkytheheed

Reducing your limits now would be an excellent way to have the mortgage application rejected! As not only would your credit usage % increase but it would look like your exsisting lenders have reason to reduce your limits as they dont trust you. 

Thrugelmir

Sounds like you've still a high level of unsecured debt.  Focus on reducing this further. 

pedgepuk

Many thanks for the comments guys and yes I can see exactly where I stand based on credit utilisation increasing if decreasing these limits. I'll leave as is and aiming to reduce my unsecured debt credit utilisation to 13% (£10k) before the mortgage app. As for my debt to earnings ratio, this currently stands at 18% but this purely on unsecured debt and hope to reduce this to 13% within the next few months.