Is now the right time to apply for my mortgage

blueskies9494

Hi all. 

I’m 27, wanting to buy a house with my partner who is 29. He’s never owned a house before, but I did with an ex and sold it in 2020. My partner and I are currently living with family to save for a mortgage, but after 6 months we are desperate to have our own place! 

We tried to apply for a mortgage last year but had an issue with my credit score and were declined. The issue was I had a recent late payment recorded on my credit score from Very. This was for £20 and had been paid, and wasn’t actually a fault of mine and Very kindly removed it for me so it has gone now. At the time, I was also on £1.5k less p/a salary, was 6 months into a car loan, had not long had covid and had been on SSP for a week, so in hindsight there were many reasons why it was not the right time to be buying a house. 

Fast-forward a year later, I’m earning more, my partner is earning circa £8k more, I’m 1.5 years into my car loan with no late payments whatsoever, and we have a year’s worth of successful rent report from credit ladder on our credit files, so things are looking good. Only issue I have is that (like I’ve seen happen to many others) Vodafone screwed me over with my final bill from my contract ending this time last year. I’d unknowingly still owed them £15 and didn’t pay this back for 3 months due to them making zero contact with me to inform me I owed it. When I saw it appear on my credit score last March, I obviously paid it straight away, but they’re refusing to take credit for the issue and have kept it on my score. My worry now is that despite us being in a much better place financially, we may still be declined a mortgage. I just want to know that we have a chance to buy a house this year, because if not, we’ll have to start thinking about renting for another year or so. 

For clarity, my partner earns a reasonable amount, I’m on a fair salary and we have around £50k between us for a deposit (our aim price-wise is properties in the £200k-£250k region. We also don’t have any other issues on our credit file, no debt and no CCJs etc. My partner’s file is very clean, it’s just my little blip. 

Anyone with any mortgage advice experience who can tell me if it’s worth a shot applying yet (a year after the late payment was first reported on my file), would be much appreciated! 

Thanks 

K_S

@blueskies9494 Based on the limited info in your post, it looks like the only blemish on your credit report are 3 missed payment markers on a Vodafone account. 

You only require a low LTV and should not have any significant issues getting a normal rate mortgage. In the unlikely event that the Vodafone markers are indeed causing you to fail mainstream DIPs, then there are lenders that don't "credit-score" and still offer competitive rates.