To not want to ask family to be a guarantor

[DaveMinion]

Dh and I have been renting our current house for 5 and a half years. No problems paying rent and both full time employed.

We found a new house that will accept pets (we have a dog and cat) and all fine until refs came back. Dh has ccjs on his credit record that we know nothing about. Think it is stolen ID as we don't have credit at all (so wouldn't have found or about them before).

The agency has said we need to either pay 6 months up front or et a guarantor. We don't have the 6 months, we are already paying 2 months and a month up front. I do have family members that I can ask but I don't want to put that responsibility on them. It's a big ask.

That's it really. If anyone has any brainwaves I can put to the letting agents that would will be great.

I would think that's a pretty standard request from LA. They've given you a choice, it's up to you whether you accept either option. I can understand your hesitancy but I doubt there's a way around it.

If you're not likely to have any problems paying the rent then surely it's not much of an imposition on your family?

Could you sort out the days with the credit references agencies if it's inaccurate and remove the need for a guarantor?

You dont have to have had credit to end up with CCJ's. It can be from not paying rent/national insurance/phone/water bills or anything. Are you sure DH hasn't had one?

surely you can query the CCJs and prove they are not linked to you - assuming DH is truthful about his past!? how would stolen ID cause this, surely they use other data too, not just a name - imagine how many John Smiths could accidentally be blacklisted if just one got into bad debt!

If the CCJs on your dh's file really are not his then you need to get them removed. Otherwise I suspect you will always have problems.

Check out your credit record as a priority. I totally understand your reluctance to ask this favour of family members. I don't think I'd oblige for anyone other than student DC, and I certainly wouldn't want to ask as an independent adult.

Hopefully when your husband proves the ccjs are not his, he can have his record amended and it will improve the situation.

Sadly, I'm not sure there's anything you can do to make them accept less than they want to.

You can look for somewhere else, but you'll probably find the same thing.

Is it that you don't want family to know the ins and outs? Perhaps you don't have to tell them the reason, if they're willing to help? Just that you need help?

I agree with PPs that you need to address the issue of the CCJs as a priority - if they are nothing to do with your husband then you need to have them removed from his record as they will continue to affect his credit for 6 years. You don't need to have credit for CCJs - any unpaid bill could result in a CCJ being handed down, but it would be very unusual for him not to know about them so he should really get that sorted and then see if the rental agency will reconsider.

Sort the ccj's - that has to be your priority. If stolen id then you will need to make sure the id isn't still being used.

I wouldn't ask family to be guarantor. If anything happens, you lose your job for example the landlord can and will go after the guarantor rather than try to sort it out with you. Not good for family relations

It seems a bit odd that you are more worried about asking family to guarantee the rent than the fact that someone has apparently stolen your DH's ID.

We are looking into it. All the bills are always in my name and so he only has mobile phone and car insurance in his name. We have been together 20 years and lived together for most off those. We are late thirties. That's why it feels crap to need a guarantor.

Theycrelate to an old address which is why we think they are dodgy. But it's not going to be a quick process to sort it. Well I'm guessing as no experience in it.

Thanks for the replies. Just pissed off we may lose the house due to this. Grr.

Good luck OP. I was pursued by a credit collection agency many years ago - a case of mistaken identity - but it was horrible and very, very difficult to sort out.

Have also just dealt with Barclays who allowed someone to open an account using my address. They were good about solving that but it took a while.

See that's the thing, we haven't been pursued at all. We have in the past (years ago, young and stupid) but learnt from that. All debts were paid off when we got our mortgage 10 years ago and we are incredibly careful about money and debts now. We have an overdraft on our current account and that's it. It's never used as we always have money at the end of the month that goes into savings.

That's the reason we think it's not actually ours. I trust dh 1000000%. He is more money savvy than me.

Why do you have a mortgage if you're renting?

Not an irrelevant question! If your own place was a buy-to-let, or if you moved areas because of work and then let out your place, perhaps someone else used the address for credit, and intercepted all the correspondence? I know I've lived at high-turnover addresses when post kept coming through, and an old landlady of mine dealt with bailiffs coming for the previous owner (the flat was a repossession).

We don't have a mortgage. We sold our flat when we started renting this house 5 years ago.

YANBU.

I completely understand - it's putting you in a position of a teenager to an extent. And what if you have no family?

Is getting the house in your name alone an option if your DH has problems?

Unfortunately not! Due to living in crazy expensive south east the rent is pretty much my entire monthly salary.