Calm me down - do we have any hope!?

[FolsomPrisonBlues]

DP and I, and our DC's have been trying to move for over 7 and a half months now.

Dp has a ccj, that coupled with his 'low' income (around 26k per annum), has meant that we're either - turned away instantly without even managing to book a viewing for properties, or are told we need a guarantor that generally earns anywhere between 40-45k per annum themselves.

We've applied for a couple of properties (the pittance amount that have actually allowed us to even go and see them!) but have thus far been declined. Presumably - and understandably - the landlords/ladies have wound up going with the families that don't have a ccj!

Anyway, we recently managed to book a viewing for a house, upon arrival we fell in love with it! I told the agent that I'm in receipt of Universal Credits - not an issue, landlord has no problems with that! We told the agent about the CCJ, and was then met with the 'ok you'll need a guarantor'. My brother in law, who earns around 40-41k per year, has kindly offered to be our guarantor, so I told the agent that we have someone who earns give or take, 40k, and was told that for that particular property, the guarantor would need to earn 43k, but 40k will be absolutely fine!

Great! We thought! We expressed our (massive) interest throughout the viewing, and asked the agent to contact us with regards to getting an application rolling. The following day, I received an email from the agent, saying that he'd already spoken with the landlord and the landlord was happy for us to be the new tenants of the house, pending referencing.
We filled out our individual forms, my brother in law filled out his guarantor one, our landlady (who we've been with over 4 and a half years) filled out hers and gave us a blinding review!

All felt good! I kept phoning the estate agents for updates - 'everything fine this end, it all looks great', they kept telling me.
I phoned them on Friday, again for another update, as the proposed move in date is incredibly soon. The estate agent told me 'the landlord has all your references, things look great with the guarantor, so don't worry! Relax, have a lovely week and stop panicking!'.

That to me, sounded incredibly positive, right?

Then today I received an email saying that our guarantor earns 2.2k less per year than what's needed - I was previously told 40k would be more than enough (I should also state my brother in law is the only person I know who earns over 40k), and also that DP's credit history is worse than they were originally told, and that they needed more info regarding his credit history, ie, a full credit report.

Dp has just done a full credit report, and discovered he has a 2nd CCJ! The letters regarding this second one, were sent to our old address that we moved out of nearly 5 years ago. We've had no correspondence at our current address regarding this ccj, he genuinely had no idea that he had another one, if he/we knew about it, we'd obviously have declared it during the application, because all this has now done has prolong everything!

I'm now completely stressing out, as finding somewhere that would accept us has been such a long and depressing journey, we were finally starting to feel a glimmer of hope and thought we'd be moving within a couple of weeks.
Now this discovery has made me think that the landlord is going to turn us down, but not only that, what chance do we have of finding another landlord that's ok with 2 ccjs, a 'low' income and the mother on universal credit!?

All I've done is cry since we found out about this second one. I feel completely lost and hopeless.

Realistically, do you think we still stand a shot? The estate agent has told me that she'll 'work on the landlord regarding our guarantors earnings', as brother-in-laws wages are only £120 short per month, so she thinks that may wind up being ok.

But honestly, what chance do we have of this landlord going 'oh, you have a second ccj that you knew nothing about because you moved almost 5 years ago? That's absolutely fine! Come and be my new tenants!'

If you moved five years ago, does that mean the CCJ is nearly five years old? Or had he not updated his address?

If it’s nearly five years old, its very old and might not matter too much. If it’s newer, it might.., there’s no way to know. But if the landlord was happy to accept one CCJ, and you were honest about it which will go in your favour, you might still be in with a shot! They’ll likely believe that you didn’t know about it, because there was no benefit to you to declare one CCJ but not both.

I appreciate circumstances can mean that sometimes there is no other option, but has your partners looked into his credit enough to know if there are any other potential skeletons, or is this it? It might be worth him getting some debt advice if he’s not sure, to make sure that it’s all being managed as well as possible and reducing the impact on his family as much as possible.

Can he settle the new CCJ? Is the old settled? If both are, I’d be pointing that out too, that might help show that he does pay his debts and was just in a bad place.

@TakeYourFinalPosition for the CCJ that he knows about, he's in the process of paying it off, I don't think there's too long left on that one until it's satisfied, thankfully, but we've even had agents tell us that satisfied CCJ's require guarantors too!

His second one, he says, was the result of a payday loan 8-10 years ago, before I even met him! Him and his ex wound up in quite a bit of debt back then, so I assume this second CCJ is the result of payday loan payments slipping through the cracks. Dp was incredibly annoyed to see he has a second one, as he knows it's only going to make things more difficult for his family, so he didn't say too much about it earlier. But from what I could gauge, the CCJ itself was issued to our old address (we hadn't been living there long before moving to our current home, maybe 8 months max) literally 2 months after we'd moved out!

Of course if we knew he had 2, we'd have not only told the agent about it, but also declared it in the forms. I'm going to be absolutely devastated if this has cost us our potential new home!

All I can hope is that the landlord is willing to understand that it genuinely is a case of dp not receiving any mail or emails about it!

I can't be certain about anything regarding his credit history given this discovery, I can only hope it's the last 'surprise' we'll encounter! But yes, some debt advice might be our next option.

Renting at the moment feels like a never ending string of jumping through a multitude of hoops, so I'm hoping that all is going to be ok, but to be honest, I'm struggling to believe that it will be. It feels as though we're going to be stuck in our current flat forever!

It’s difficult OP. If I’m being honest, I’d look at it one or two ways:

Either your DH wasn’t being honest about having a second CCJ to try and get the application through, or he was being honest and genuinely didn’t know, but effectively thought he could skip the debt by moving house.

Neither makes him an attractive prospect I’m afraid. However if a landlord is prepared to accept one CCJ and a guarantor, they might be willing to take a chance if they’re struggling to get tenants in. You make no money when the house is empty!

If his file has been clear for six years it gets easier though I believe. I hope this is true for you. It’s not great that you’re being bogged down by his previous poor choices.

Oh sympathy op. I employed someone who ended up with a ccj from an unpaid parking ticket they didn't even know about. It caused issues for a while with things like mortgage applications and phone credit agreements until they got rid of it.

I hope it can all be sorted out. I'd have your eyes open about your dps approach to money and financial admin though. I'm not sure I'd be sticking around if a third one emerged to be honest. Good luck.

@Icancelledthecheque I can generally see straight through dp when he's lying, and also he's also incapable of faking emotions, so given he's deeply apologetic and angry at himself/this situation, I can pretty much guarantee he wasn't aware of this second one. Not that that makes this situation any less frustrating for either of us!
Yes, I'm hoping that given the landlord was ok with one, he may be ok with two. To be honest, it's pretty much our only hope now, before I reside myself to our family being cramped in to a too-small flat for all eternity!

Thank you @carlywurly! It is incredibly irritating to keep having his past effing up our future! My credit history is fine, but with that being said, if it wasn't, I'm not sure I'd be ok with DP having a go at me for mistakes I made when I was younger, especially my 'Pre family days'. We all have pasts, it's just unfortunate that his has severely come back to bite us in the arse, and is now hindering our search for a decent family home.

All I can do is hope that the landlord is understanding. In the current climate, it's especially hard to find guarantors that earn the amount most estate agents are after, so I'm hoping that given we do have someone that's backing us who earns 40k, we've been outstanding tenants for our current landlady who is genuinely said to see us go, and dp is working hard to pay off his ccj (well, the one he knew about!), it might mean we have a chance. I just don't know.

@TakeYourFinalPosition yup, the second ccj is nearly 5 years old, so only a year a bit until it's off his file. I feel slightly better and a little more hopeful knowing that this 'new' one is close to the end. Perhaps that will work in our favour?