A past problem is not a permanent no
Adverse credit changes which lenders will look at you and what it costs. Far less often does it change whether you can buy at all.
Missed payments, defaults, county court judgments, debt management plans, even a discharged bankruptcy: all of them have mortgages that can sit behind them. What the history changes is which lenders will consider you, how much deposit you need, and what the borrowing costs while the record ages.
Nobody actually has a credit score. Lenders never see the number your credit app shows you; they see what is recorded on your file and apply their own rules to it. Two lenders can read the same file and reach opposite answers, which is why the right starting point is the file itself, not the score.
How lenders tend to read the common issues
A rough map of appetite, assuming the issue is a couple of years old and settled. Age, and whether it has been repaid, move everything.
Missed payments
One or two historic late payments rarely trouble mainstream lenders, particularly once they are more than a year or two old. An account in persistent arrears right now is a different conversation.
Defaults and CCJs
Plenty of lenders will consider them, and the recorded date matters far more than the amount. Small, old and satisfied is a very different case from large, recent and outstanding.
Debt management plans
Some lenders want the plan finished; others will lend while it is still running, provided it has been conducted well. The deposit usually needs to be a little larger.
IVAs and bankruptcy
The most specialist end of the market, counted from the discharge date rather than the start, and improving steadily as the years pass. Specialist does not mean impossible.
Editorial shorthand for how appetite typically runs, not a promise about any lender or any file. The same facts genuinely get different answers in different places.
Age matters far more than size, and both matter more than the score an app shows you.
The questions people are relieved to have answered
Will just asking you damage my credit file?
No. A conversation with us involves no credit search at all. Only a formal application does, and we would not submit one anywhere until we already expected it to be accepted.
Should I apply somewhere and see what happens?
Please do not. Every application is recorded and the next lender can see it. A declined application is the single most expensive mistake in adverse credit, because it makes the application that should have worked harder.
The things on my file are not even right.
Errors are common, and all three credit agencies have to give you a statutory report free of charge. Corrections take time, so getting your file before anyone applies is the cheapest fix in the whole process.
How long until it stops mattering?
Most adverse credit falls off your file after six years, and lender appetite improves well before that. Something that rules you out with one lender today may not trouble another one right now.
Will this cost me more?
Sometimes, at least at first. Specialist lenders price for the history, and the usual path is a spell with one while the file heals, then a remortgage to the mainstream when it has. We plan that second step from the start.
Before anyone applies
- Get your statutory reports
- All three agencies, because lenders do not all check the same one. You are looking for errors, for anything about to pass an anniversary, and for what is actually recorded rather than what you remember.
- Tell us everything
- The awkward disclosures are exactly the ones that decide where an application should go. Nothing you tell us triggers a search, an application, or a lecture.
- Sometimes the best move is a short wait
- Waiting a few months for a default to pass an anniversary can widen the market considerably. Where a pause genuinely beats pressing on, we will say so.
Let's find out where you stand.
One conversation, no cost, and no obligation to go any further. We will tell you honestly what is possible before you commit to anything.