My boyfriend and I are trying to buy our first house together. Not an easy task with house prices so high, it's taken us a while but we've found a nice house and got the deposit together, so all we need now is the mortgage. Heard back today that our application has been rejected as my boyfriend has a default on his credit history from 5 years ago when he got into a bit of a mess with a credit card and although he eventually paid it all off, the damage was done. I;ve never had a black mark and he has never been in debt since that time. I'm sure we'll get a mortgage from some one but we might end up paying higher intrest rates which makes me mad! All we want to do is buy a house that we have worked hard to be able to afford! They say moving house is very stressful... Not even got the mortgage yet and I'm banging my head on the wall!!!

You can apply for your file (Experian is one of the companies that hold the files I believe) and if the details are incorrect, or from a long time ago you can apply to have them removed.

Good luck.

You can ask them to add a short statement called a Notice of Correction. This will be added to your report and seen by anyone asking for information about you in the future, as well as companies who have looked at your report in the past six months. You would probably be best to obtain a report from them first they cost £2 per name and have a look before applying again.
Here is a link to the main uk companies.
experian
equifax
Kind regards,
Linda

As Digger says you can ask the mortgage company for the name of the credit checker they used and then for a small fee you can write to them for information .
This happened to us years ago ( not for a mortgage) but for a car purchase .
Turned out that when we first moved into the house years ago there was an outstanding arrears for the ground rent which the previous owner hadnt paid :rolleyes: . Our solicitor was supposed to have checked all this before moving in but anyway ..... ground rent man took us to court as apparently this charge is carried forward to the new owners
(  :(  ) . It was a silly amount for something like £30 but it was the principle of having to pay someone elses bill . We were told we had to pay half but if it was paid within the month there would be no "black mark" against us . Unfortunately although it was paid within this period , the court omitted to not include it , so when we were credit checked it came out as having a county court judgement against us . Luckily we had the original letter as proof and it was wiped clean .
That was a bit of a long waffle wasnt it ? Sorry...... :)
But it may be worth checking out for yourselves

By the way I always think those people who have never had credit are considered a bad risk by companies as there is no proof of their credit rating :rolleyes: - crazy

One more thing
given the data protection laws in existence now -can they still make you pay to see any credit information against you ???
As anything written about you , you can ask to see anyway ???? Anyone know

I think they charge as an administration charge rather than to release the information ! I maybe wrong .

you can still get a mortgage with bad credit history -   i did  i was 18 when  i got my first house and i had bad credit  -there are plenty of companies that take people with bad credit  
ask ur mortgage advisor she should find some one for you

also just to let you know im more than positive that black marks against your credit file only last 6 yrs so if you decide to wait a while youll have after a yr nothing there. Also the more mortgages you apply for the more credit rating they use up as they do the searches each time.

nails :0)

Thanks every one for the advice, we have just applied for our credit history from experian, £2 and it will be here within 7 days, so now it's a matter of waiting. Our financial advisor wants to wait until we see this before we apply again to another company (more rejections, worse the credit looks!) if it definetly is the debt had my boyfriend had 5 years ago, then he is confident there are 2 main stream lenders out there that are a bit more lenient than the building society that we were rejected by. Especially because the debt was 5 years + ago. So it's fingers crossed every body X Thanks again for the advice.

Don't worry, you will get a loan.  Do not be bullied into taking a loan with a higher interest rate just because the financial adviser tells you that's all you can get.  That's nonsense.  There are plenty of lenders that will give you a fair deal at no penalty.  I speak from experience so make sure if its not what you want then you don't take it.  Get a second, third, fourth opinion til you get a good deal.  Good luck!!

CG

Also remember that if you don't get a good deal immediately because of the bad credit history, once you have a mortgage (at 'bad' rates), you can remortgage at good rates once you have a good history of paying.

Get a GOOD finacial advisor with a godo reputation.

If you do have a deposit and are still struggling you can generally get a buy to let mortgage then change it over to a normal one in a couple years.

Sometimes the damage is done though applying for credit over and over again , the declines affect your score. 

Make sure the nest one you apply for is generally sympathetic as even the declines just now will make the scoring worse.

Good luck

Pam

WOO HOO!
Just heard back from our financial advisor... A certain big high street back has agreed to give us a mortgage!!!!
We found out from experian that my boyfriends default was from Dec 1998... so it will be wiped off soon any way. Silly thing is the debt was only for £300 and he did pay it off eventually. Never mind! We've got the mortgage now and will be movng soon! (fingers crossed x)
Thanks every one for the advice, I'm just sooo pleased. Now the stress really begins....

i kept getting sent offers from capital one to apply for a creditcard they kep speeling my name wrong, when they eventaully got it right they knocked me back 6months down the line sent me another application again in worng spelling of my name reapplied and put letter in with application saying if they didnt give me a creditcard i would be ripping up all further correspondance from them. guess what they gave me a creditcard! there are a couple of companioes who offer to repair your credit rati9ng for a fee, but dont know if theyre any good? seems too good to be true

there was a letter in the doggy mag from a lady who kept getting letters from them addressed to her dog!! that made me laugh

Congratulations Joules, have your last celebratory drink for about 35 years :D