Remortgage with poor credit rating

Bendigo

My wife and I have a mortgage with Bristol & West. We joined them four years ago. The reason we have them and not a 'better' mortgage company is because we panicked when we had money problems and went with a company called Bains & Ernst.

It nearly broke us. Bad move.

Now we are on a relatively level playing field and on top of things but want to change our mortgage. My wife has an account with HSBCand we tried to remortgage with them.

The woman helping us advised us to get credit reports from Experian and we did. Next to my name is an £81 default from 2001 with Singlepoint (Vodaphone) created by our B&E balls up. She said this may stop our chances but the mananger of the branch may sign our agreement and overlook it "because he signs off so many per month."

He refused. We need to remortgage.

We don't know where to go from here. Can anyone advise us please?

Ta in advance.

Dammam

I don't have any specific help, but I can let you know my own experiences which MAY be of some help.
I'd had a good Mortgage with the Monmouthshire BS, capped at 6%. Never had any money probs until I was suddenly made redundant and couldn't find work. The defaults and debts piled up, culminating in a CCJ on the mortgage.
I paid the mortgage default and the only way I could see of paying off the rest was by remortgaging. Of course, no one was very keen to lend to me and in the end I went to a small independant outfit who got me a remortgage with Preferred. When I tell you that my current rate is over 8% you will get an idea of how hard they hit me. You can get a mortgage, but they'll make you pay for it. I'm now remortgaging again to a 2 year fixed 6% - not the best in the world but a steady improvement. My position was MUCH worse than yours, but as in all things financial, the less you have, the more they try to take off you.

It seems extremely harsh to knock you back due to an old Vodafone default. Maybe you should ask an independant mortgage specialist to sort something for you. Why do you need to remortgage? Are you trying to release some capital or are you on a particularly bad rate? If the Vodafone is settled, it should disappear from your credit report 6 years after the date of default, so that may help. If you can stay put until then, you may have a little more room to manouevre.