Mortgage, credit score

[alltherightfriends]

Hi. I am currently looking at buying a house with DP. Our joint income is around 60k and we have no children yet so no childcare to pay for. We have a small deposit and are looking at a 95% mortgage (no help to buy scheme though). I have just checked my credit score on Noddle and it is only 1/5....do I need to worry about this? It says that all of my accounts are up to date which I already knew but if this is the case why only 1/5? We saw a mortgage advisor a couple of weeks ago who said we should get accepted for the mortgage no problem but we haven't actually applied for it yet and now I'm worried about doing it in case we get rejected. We both earn enough however I do have a car loan which is paid back through my work mileage so doesn't come out of my actual salary...however it's currently quite a hefty remaining balance. Will this make a difference? Thanks in advance if anyone has any tips for last ditch efforts to improve my credit score! On the plus side I think that DP has a good score on his own (although we are linked through joint accounts) so hopefully he will drag my score up

Thankyou.

Whilst credit scores are not used by lenders, they can be a good indicator of how credit worthy you are. 1/5 is not good, my score on Noddle is the same but then I have outstanding defaults so it is only to be expected.

Are you on the electoral register at your current address? Do you have any credit at the moment? Sometimes that can be a bad thing as a lender can't see how you manage your finances. Is your car loan showing on your file and are all payments up to date?

Thanks for replying
We have both been on the electoral register at this address since moving here 4 years ago and before that I was at university but on the register at my parents address. My car finance shows up and payments are fully up to date. I have no recent defaults although I did have some about 2 summers ago when I was midway through an MA but they were paid as soon as they rang to tell me the payments were late (one credit card, one online store account). At the minute I have 1k on a credit card (paid a deposit for wedding and it will be paid off in full at the end of this month). I'm just a bit confused!

How come lenders don't look at credit scores? I thought that was a key part of getting a mortgage. Makes me feel a bit better if that is the case though, I just hope I haven't got to wait another 3/4 years for the old defaults to fall off the files.

Hmm it does seem strange that your score is so low. My noddle score is 3/5 and I've been told that the reason it's that low is because we've moved around so much in rented accommodation (about 11 places in 6 years) and had a period of living abroad. I found experian much clearer in terms of understanding my score than noddle but obviously you have to pay for that.

I've just done one on equifax...it looks like it was low because I went over my overdraft limit a few times during my MA. Equifax has given me more optimism though. I didn't realise until I did this that phone contract (both the usage one and the one for the actual phone), and internet etc is classed as a credit agreement, even my bank account (without overdraft facility) is listed as a credit agreement. If you didn't have to pay £15 per month I would look at this every month to check up on myself!!

Lenders will look at your credit file and the information on it and then make a decision whether or not to lend. The actual score is a number made up by the credit reference agencies. Noddle uses a 1-5 rating, Equifax score out of 500 and Experian up to 999, so they are all different anyway.

Ahh ok that makes sense! Thanks Purple. My equifax score is better than what 1/5 would suggest it would be so I'm less worried now.

Have a look at you experian score. Lenders will look at the last six years. There's a difference between a late payment and a default. If you've had a default in the last six years, you might find it difficult to get a mortgage with a high street lender.

Ah. Sorry I must have written default without thinking. I have no defaults within the last 6 years. Just late payments from when I was an undergraduate student which were all settled pretty quickly but still show up. Thankyou for making that clear

We got the mortgage The 1/5 mustn't have meant too much!!