Mortgages and poor credit, my experience.

boom87

So I'm telling my story here, might be totally useless, but it also might be useful to someone in a similar situation. 

We started looking to buy a property at the very end of 2019. Just before COVID. We didn't know if we'd get a mortgage from anyone so we approached a broker just to see if anything was even remotely possible. 

For reference we were open to new or old builds, but had minimal deposit and in terms of credit we both had some settled defaults, about 3 between us all over 3 years old. However I had a two year old ccj for £1700 that I was clearing monthly. 

The broker came back eventually with a new build offer that worked for us however then COVID hit and ofcourse everything stopped. 

During this time we looked at alsorts of builds, trying to find something big enough we could afford, but with the disparity in our area between the cost of new builds and older ones, there just wasn't anything that worked for us. So we decided it had to be an older house. 

We went back to our broker and asked what our options were, now we're 12 months down the line and having done my own research I'd been trying to tidy our credit files up as much as possible, I settled the ccj in full, didn't owe more than £300 on credit cards between us and had no recent blips. 
I really hoped we could find something with a 5% deposit, however he and another broker I spoke to said this was impossible. 

I'd done so much research though I just felt sure we were borderline to something, someone who would take us. By now we are very early 2022 with one default left on file (the other two had fell off due to age) and my satisfied ccj which by now is 4 years old and paid for one year. I asked again and was advised 15% minimum.

After all my research this just didn't seem right to me, I felt sure after checking what various lenders would accept that we ticked someone's boxes. So I went through every lenders criteria I could find and was sure we met the criteria Barclays were quoting, I mentioned this to our broker and he said no way, we don't meet criteria. So more out of stubbornness than anything else I figured there was no harm in trying and filled in an aip. Accepted. 

Didn't want to get too carried way but this was exciting! We found a property that was a fair bit under our max budget so our ltv worked out at around 4%. Had an offer accepted and booked all the necessary with Barclays. Had a phone appointment to go through the application. Even the lady we dealt with who worked for Barclays advised us it might not go through with the ccj, but at the end of the call, even she was surprised. Subject to proof verification it was auto accepted. 


I'll skip ahead as most of the rest is waiting on conveyancers but long story short we completed today. 

Tldr, do your own research to valid what people tell you. Sometimes a few tweaks to your file and a little patience  will get you options you didn't think we're possible. 

dimbo61

Well done 
Hope your happy in your new home 
Hope you have a 5 year fix for security and time to repair your credit file and build up equity in your home.
Your on the best website for all things Money saving which everyone ( well most people ) Now need.

louj22

This sounds like me. I’m glad you got something. This give me hope. A lot of teeth sucking from brokers. 

smipsy

What rates/payment have you ended up with?

Edi81

4% LTV?
some precise numbers would be of use to see actual LTV you borrowed at. 

simon_or

Well done OP, always good to get a second opinion even if it's your own.

I used to have a very ordinary broker like the one you've described until I took the effort to get a second opinion from my current broker who's an absolute star.

My credit issues were way worse than yours, and coupled with a few different income streams which makes it even more complicated.

PK_London

What a happy ending. I was expecting bad news but well done for pushing on. Please let us know some of the numbers involved.