Buying a Property in the UK - But my credit score?

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  1. #1

    Join Date
    Jan 2014
    Posts
    66

    Buying a Property in the UK - But my credit score?

    Hi - British Expat here.

    I'm in the early stages of looking into a buy to let mortgage for a property in the UK. It's with a broker here in Hong Kong that specialises in mortgages for British expats.

    They will be running a credit check on my UK accounts and financial history.

    Now here's the annoying thing:

    - UK student loans deducts money from my UK HSBC account each month.

    - As my account balance was getting low, I went into an unarranged overdraft on this account from February to April this year.

    - I was charged late repayment fees - I wasn't aware of this until too late because the letters from HSBC were going to my UK address.


    I have since topped up my UK HSBC account with cash to get me out of the overdraft.

    This is really quite annoying because it might scupper my mortgage application because it's so recent and went on for two months.

    Does anyone how likely this incident will scupper my chances of obtaining a mortgage? Is there anything I can do to rectify this?


    I'm a first time buyer by the way.


  2. #2

    Doesn’t answer your question but you can get a free credit check to see for yourself. Can’t remember who (maybe Experian), but I ran a check before doing my mortgage application.


  3. #3

    Join Date
    Jan 2014
    Posts
    66

    Thanks - I'm going to run an Equifax report to see what my score is.

    It's just a little bit annoying and badly timed for this to happen. I'm not struggling for money at all - I was just slightly careless in my management of my UK bank account. But I don't know if the mortgage lender can see this.


    If the worse comes to worse and I do get rejected for a mortgage, what's the best course of action? Wait a year, keep my UK account squeaky clean and try again in 12 months time?