‘Highly likely loan’ Natwest

beckstas-money

Natwest (who i bank and have a joint mortgage with) have advised that i am ‘highly likely’ to be offered a loan of £20k over 5 years subject to checks.

I have just done the soft check for 15k over 4 years but have been declined.

This will be used for home improvements. Is there a way i can see what i could be accepted for without doing loads of soft checks?

MalMonroe

You could try consulting the main credit reference agencies - Experian, Equifax and TransUnion. There's another CRA being mentioned now, too, Crediva - but I usually use either Experian or Equifax. 

Doing loads of soft checks will not harm your credit report, it's the hard ones you want to avoid.  

Log in to one or all of the CRAs and just put your information in once to each and they should give you an indication of which lender is more likely to be obliging. Problem is, they may say 'yay' online but then decline when you've actually applied and they have done a hard search. Doing that would also give you the opportunity to check your reports and ensure that they are up to date and there's nothing on them that will put lenders off.

I'd definitely want to go back to the person at NatWest who told you that you were 'highly likely' to be offered £20k, tell them about the soft search result and ask them why they were so positive about your eligibility. (Also ask them not to do a hard search for the time being as you're just at the enquiring stage.)

Just a reminder of what this site says about loans "Remember MSE's stance on loans: 'borrow as little as possible, repay as quickly as possible".

MovingForwards

@MalMonroe it's in the app about may, likely and highly likely regarding all their products, therefore no physical person to speak with about it.

Using checkers on CRA's is even less reliable than OPs previous experience.

[Deleted User]

It was pretty obvious it would be app/website, customer support staff are not qualified to offer financial advice so could (and would) never tell OP they could apply for a loan, no idea where this idea of a staff member came from.

OP I would suggest you rethink your plans, maybe split the project if possible. Might be worth looking into your situation properly though - debt, income, value that the works would add etc