Adverse mortgage - should I should send letter of explanation

xcvx

Hi all 
Has anyone got any experience of sending a letter of explanation with their application to explain their adverse credit blip? I have adverse from 2017/2018 due to bad relationship. I have seen people on here mention sending a letter of explanation as to why the adverse occurred etc. but wondering if it does actually help or not. I don't want to make anything worse. 
thank you 

ACG

It depends on the lender you are applying to.
We place a lot of adverse on the high street, typically those lenders do not really care. 
If you need a specialist lender or building society, they will probably want the explanation as standard. 

xcvx

@ACG thank you. I will get writing! We are having to use Precise due to the last adverse being under 36 months. 

robatwork

Interesting point - what "explanation" would be a good one for a lender?  They all seem fraught with things that would make an underwriter sweaty.  For example
Illness - will the applicant get ill again and not pay?
Bad relationship - reflects badly on the judgment of the applicant  (no offence meant - just looking at this dispassionately)
Spent more than earned - reflects badly on the responsibility of the applicant.

xcvx

@robatwork This is what i am worried about, making it worse. I mean mine was a really bad relationship when I was 19 which writing it up makes it seem even worse than I remember! I am now better of financially off in soo many different ways but i guess i will look risky either way..

ACG

They just want to know what caused it.

Why did you not pay your debts? Ill health/relationship etc is better than I did not want to. Its funny, we do a lot of adverse and most people tend to fall into one of 3 categories:
1) Life event - illness/relationship/redundancy.
2) Youth - 18 year old gets offered credit cards and overdrafts then goes on a spending spree and realises they cant pay it back or maybe tries to pay it back but is robbing peter to pay paul and end up with 3-5 defaults by the time they are 20. By 24 they are in a better job, learnt some lessons, maybe in a long term relationship and looking to get on the ladder.
3) People who are just consistently bad. 

They can all be helped and may even end up with the same lender on the same product. You do not need to write war and peace about what caused the adverse, just a paragraph is plenty. 

robatwork

I'd have to say if I were an underwriter, I'd look most favourably on "young and dumb" in preference to a sob story about being unlucky or ill. And now I've grown up etc....

ACG

I am all for helping anyone. The only time I wont do the mortgage though is if someone has multiple defaults and every one is someone elses fault. If someone says they have 10 defaults over 5 years and they say they were just silly I would be up for helping. If one was vodafone' fault and another was Barclays fault and I am not paying another on principle because they charged a late fee and.... (you get the idea). In my head all I think is 10 default one common denominator. 

MovingForwards

It's just a simple explanation about what happened eg relationship failed in year, this was the financial implications, since then I've cleared Y, and now do Z to budget / save and avoid it ever happening again.

xcvx

Thanks everyone.

Sotts

I've just done been asked to do the same. MB explained at application stage but they wanted it in my own words.
Explained my fathers terminal illness, my emotional issues, payday loan to cover funeral costs which spiralled, agreed reduced payments (shows as default_)  Then explained thats all sorted, debts been clear, not a single missed payment in 3 years.
They want to see that whatever caused the issues before won't recur