Over the last few years we have found that we have a lot of the same conversations. Two of those conversations are:
- I know you probably wont be able to help me because of my bad credit but….
- I have been told I can not get a Mortgage but I just wanted to try…
What we tend to find is that people who have bad credit fall into 1 of 3 categories:
- Youth – Typically this will be where someone took out credit, “principles” or youth took over and you decided you were not paying your bills because you did not realise the implications or did not like that the company added a late fee because you paid late – no judgement, we have all been there.
- A life event – This could be anything really, illness, relationship breakdown, redundancy. The implications of the life event may have hit you badly and you struggled at the time. When we look at your credit report you might have a good report bar a 6 month period where it all just went wrong.
- Disorganised or just not great with credit – this is where we would expect to see defaults/arrears pretty much every year on your credit report.
Of the above, 1 and 2 are generally easier to overcome. You would expect people who fall into these categories to get the lower rates and be able to get by with a smaller deposit. However the people who fall into the third category are still able to get a Mortgage.
You may have seen many of our Success Stories but I thought it would be good to put them into categories to help you see what we can overcome…
Success stories with Defaults
The Mortgage with a Default and Pay Day Loans
Success Stories with Bankruptcy/IVA
2 IVAs AND 2 Bankruptcies on the same application.
Success Stories with DMPs
Bad Credit summary
The types of cases we see the most are customers who have Defaults, that really is our bread and butter type of case, but because we specialise in bad credit mortgages we also regularly come across people who have Bankruptcies, CCJs, DMPs and so on. We have very good relationships with some of these specialist lenders which means we also have access to criteria and products that only very limited brokers are able to access.
Having bad credit as you may have seen in some of these examples does not necessarily mean you will end up with high rates of interest, we will always try to get you on the high street if we can – those lenders are easier to work with for us and are cheaper for you so it is win win, but we will always be honest and try to set your expectations on rates after our first conversation if we can.
We say this all the time, but just get in touch. If you do not ask, we can not help. Without wanting to sound mercenary, we only get paid if you get your Mortgage so we will not waste your time. If we can not help, we will tell you. We will also point you in the right direction and that may be aiming for a bigger deposit, waiting or whatever it may be.