Mortgage advice

[Lisa.l85]

We are looking at purchasing our council house. My husband is self employed. On paper he earns less than me but his credit ratin is good and mine is poor. Would we have issues getting a mortgage in joint names amdmisnit worth my husband trying on his own?

thank you in advance

[Amethyst]

Are you joint tenants on the house?

We looked into buying ours and basically, they wouldn't entertain it in just other half's name as we're joint tenants, and my credit file was still too knackered, so we had to put it off while I fix my file - think we're looking at buying in 2020 once my credit file is better ( have been getting all my defaults settled off and trying to build some kind of rating in the meantime ).

It annoying as the mortgage would actually be lower than our rent, and the house value is just going up at the moment... grrrrr ( although a few months after we'd looked into it all, we had new central heating and a new roof so worked out okay really)

You don't want to end up going sub-prime on the mortgage so worth waiting a couple years to sort your credit file out then trying again. You can always enquire at a mortgage broker and have them look at a joint application to see if it is even a possibility before making a decision.

[Lisa.l85]

Thank you for your message. I think that’s what I need to do. My husband has no credit so could do with getting a credit card and I have poor credit because I have 1 default on there but it has a 0 balance so need to work out what to do about that.
Alo we had a letter yesterday saying we are getting a new boiler so do you think we should wait before contacting council.

[Amethyst]

There is some kind of a clawback on the new boiler ( and our new roof ) I believe but think it's a lot less than it would have been to do it yourself, and depending on how long you have already been there, your discount will increase (unless you're already at maximum discount ) - but then weigh against house value going up... swings and roundabouts really.

If you only have one default and it's a £0 balance, is it marked as settled/partially settled and in your closed accounts bit? How long ago did it default ( when we discussed with our mortgage guy they wanted 2 years from the defaults being settled ) - 1 default isn't terrible - but would restrict you from the better mortgage deals. I'd talk to a mortgage person first before getting into the system with the council - it does take quite a long time for the council to do the replies and valuations ( they tend to have a set procedure ) so if you find out from the mortgage peeps what you need to do to be eligible for a decent deal, if it's not too much, you could start the ball rolling with the council and spend the 3/4 months getting those bits sorted. Your credit file sounds about 8 times better than mine lol.

We have credit cards we are using to build the credit rating up - just be VERY careful with them and refuse any credit limit increases ( mine tried to go from £250 to £900 within 6 months of me getting it ! ) - really you want to be using it for, say, petrol, and paying it off in full EARLY EVERY MONTH ( other half uses his for an online purchase now and then and pays it off as soon as it shows on his statement ). I'm not sure how much actual benefit they are to the credit file vs the risk of them getting out of hand.

It's a tough one - on one side we are completely secure as we have a lifetime tenancy etc here and if we buy then cock it up somehow we've lost that security - but on the other side I do feel like rent is just money down the toilet if we're not doing it with an aim to buying …. sure you've probably been through the same thoughts.

Oh, on your boiler front, are you being changed from Baxi back boiler heating/water etc to a combi? I was dubious when they said they were doing ours... but it's bloody brilliant

( sorry for the ramble there lol )