Mortgage offer retracted

twinkle2005

Hi I am just after some advice around anyone who has had a full mortgage offer retracted? Or has been in the same situation as me. I do not have a good credit history due to my ex missing mortgage payments when we split up. However we got a broker and he managed to get us a really good deal with Halifax. My score has always been middle to top fair. Since the hard search and paying off an old student loan recently my cred it score has significantly dropped. I haven’t taken out any further credit and nothing at all has changed in relation to affordability. I am so worried that Halifax will run another check before exchange and say I no longer meet their credit score requirements. Has anyone ever had this happen ?? 

SpreadableToast

Ignore your CRA score, it's meaningless.

You're not going to fail to meet whatever Halifax's requirements are by paying off debt, at worst it will make no difference, more likely they'll see it as a positive.

To answer your question, yes people have had offers retracted right up until the last minute but it's usually because they've racked up further debt since the full offer was given.

twinkle2005

So even if my credit score is now bringing on poor? This whole process is stressful as hell 

SpreadableToast

twinkle2005 said:

So even if my credit score is now bringing on poor? This whole process is stressful as hell 

As I already said, your credit score with the credit reference agencies is meaningless.  Ignore it.

bradders1983

You are being told a meaningless score is poor by Experian.

Ignore it! It is meaningless!

Thrugelmir

Don't waste your time looking at meanigless scores.  

twinkle2005

Thank you. I’ve just always thought  that high street lenders look at credit scores more than adverse credit agencies. Seems that you need a Aip on a scoring system before you even get your foot in the door. Thank you all for the reassurance 

comeandgo

I don't know if it's any reassurance, they will see what is causing the low score.

SpreadableToast

comeandgo said:

I don't know if it's any reassurance, they will see what is causing the low score.

Which is probably just the hard search that they performed.  If the student loan is reported (not sure if they are) then they'll see that it's paid off.  Neither of those are going to hurt your chances with a lender, but the CRA's love to react to any change by knocking your score down a bit.  Hence why everyone says these scores are meaningless.

MovingForwards

The credit score and rating are not seen or used by any financial institution in the UK, they see and use the credit history.

Lenders also have their own internal algorithm methods for scoring applications. 

Therefore a lender 'credit scoring' is based on many things including salary, time in job, outgoings, existing credit commitments, how you run / maintain your accounts eg not going overdrawn, not relying on an overdraft, making payments on time, not having late payments or missing payments, not having defaults / CCJs / IVA or being bankrupt.

With sub-prime lenders they take into account all of the above, how long ago the negative issues were, account conduct to demonstrate you can manage finance / accounts now, what the reasons for the negative issues, bigger deposit.

You've worked yourself into a tizz. Stop, reread all the replies and have faith in your broker.

fiision2020

Some mortgage providers make a provision on the offer that some debt is paid off such as credit cards, loans etc. Paying off the old student loan is a good thing, it should increase your affordability.