Rover8098:Hi,
My wife and I are planning to buy our first home together - currently renting and paying over £900 in monthly rent (before anything else!). Figure out buying our own 1/2 bed place would be much better (maybe not financially, but at least the money we pay will go towards our own property rather than the landlord.....). All our payments are always on time with no arrears. Joint income of almost £70k annually and I have an excellent/good credit rating from Equifax and Experian respectively and plenty of live credit lines to prove that I'm not an adverse borrower.

Our only problem is that my wife has a 'very poor' credit rating according to Equifax - couple of reasons (1) She only has one live credit agreement (a mail order a/c), where payments are up to date and (2) a default of £924 registered against her name in Jan 2003. She only just found out about the default and we are making arrangements to pay off the sum so at least the default is marked as 'satisfied' on her credit file (which may just improve her rating from 'very poor' to 'poor'!!).
What are our chances of getting a joint mortgage for about £200 - £215k? Would the fact that I'm the higher earner and have a strong credit rating help, or would my credit rating just be pulled down due to my wife's credit rating? At present, we don't have any financial associations, and I'm really concerned that my credit worthiness would be impacted adversely if I went in to a joint financial association with my wife (the default on her credit file will be removed in just over a couple of years) -but at the same time, we need to buy a place and get out of renting! All suggestions/advice very much welcome/appreciated. Thank you.

I apparently have 2 defaults within 3 years on my history (which im querying atm because I havent got a clue what they are and im guessing they might be mistakes) however I have had a few rejections and 2 accpets....

Rejected:
Nationwide, Scottish Widow, Alliance and Leicester

Accepted:
Intelligent Finance, Natwest, Northern Rock

The accpeted ones must not care too much about the defualts, however with these ones HLC or a high(er) interest rate applies.