Does Bad Credit Affect Applications For Mortgages?

Posted by Nick Niesen on October 29th, 2010

Bad Credit is another way of describing a negative credit score. A credit score can be either good or bad and is used by lenders to determine whether you are likely to be able to keep up the payments on something like a mortgage.

Your credit score is calculated using a mathematical formula and information from banks or lenders from who you have had a loan of some sort. The formulae and reports consider your bill-paying (credit) history and compare it alongside the credit history of millions of other people. The resulting figure is used as a ?risk assessment? by potential lenders. This in turn can have either a negative or positive effect on your future borrowing.

A good credit score will typically be given when someone has borrowed money, but made all the payments back and on time, without any defaults. This person will be looked at as a potentially desirable customer as there is little risk involved in their paying back the loaned money. Applications for loans, or remortgage and mortgage applications, should be approved relatively quickly and a good rate of interest offered.

A bad credit score will typically be given to someone who has been unable to make payments on time in the past. They may have defaulted on a loan, had a County Court Judgement made against them or even been declared bankrupt. Credit cards, existing loans and other indications of your bill-paying history can be taken into consideration, generally over a two-year period, although bankruptcy can influence a credit score for much longer.

Current and potential earnings are also factors that help determine a credit score. Lenders for such things as a mortgage or remortgage will view anyone with bad credit as a potential risk and the interest rates offered will usually reflect that risk by being much higher. Some applications may even be turned down.

Some lenders specialise in bad credit mortgage arrangements or remortgage schemes for those with bad credit histories, but it is advisable to research the intricacies of these propositions before going ahead with them. Different lenders operate different policies and it is worth ?shopping? around to see if they offer facilities to pay more when finances allow, or even so-called ?payment holidays?.

As the credit score is based on ever-fluctuating factors, it is possible for someone with bad credit to alter their score over a period of time and affect it positively, thereby lessening themselves as a risk in the eyes of lenders. Careful financial management is required: the meeting of repayments on time, paying off outstanding debts and generally ?keeping an eye? on all things financial can raise a bad credit score into the positive bracket.

A copy of your current credit score is obtainable and it should be checked to see that the information determining a score is accurate. Some people with bad credit may be suffering unnecessarily under the influence of debts that have actually been paid off or even discover themselves to be the victims of identity theft, where someone else is using their bank details for their own purposes ? consequently damaging their credit score as well as stealing from them.