Hello,

Our fixed rate mortgage ends in a few months and I've started looking at the option of remortgaging. A couple of years ago we remortgage through a broker to a mortgage company that accepts sub-prime borrowers. I've made some financial mistakes in the passed and have some defaults registered against me. A few have been paid off and my kind mother in law has offered to pay the outstanding £2000 off for us before we remortgage. Considering we were sub-prime the interest rate for our mortgage is 5.79% which was lower than Abbey at the time.

I would like to remortgage this year as we only own 75% of our property as we bought through the homebuy scheme 4 years ago. I would like us to buy the other share as we are now in the financial position to do so but this would mean increasing our mortgage. We've never missed a mortgage payment and I pay all my other bills on time (the defaulted ones). Is it easier staying with the same lender? Are they more likely to lend us more. Our mortgage is currently £100k. So we would be looking to add £25,000 to the mortgage because the house is worth £139k. I know they will do another credit check and my credit rating, although better is still extremely bad because I am using 85% of my available credit.

My husband's is actually better than mine, unlike last time when he was about the same. Will that help is secure a better mortgage. I'm not to bothered about the interest rate. Lloydstsb (our bank) said they will look at us but they won't even increase our overdraft so I doubt we'd be accepted. They are offering 7.29% for a 90% mortgage. That's worse than two years ago. That's fixed for 5 years. But surprisingly they were extremely supportive.

But I did read some where that sub-prime mortgage lenders work to help repair your credit rating because it doesn't appear on your history until you've held it for 2 to 3 years. Is that correct? It doesn't appear on my credit history at all. Abbey does stating it as settled!

Sorry for all the questions...I would appreciate any advice before moving forward.

Thanks

Gemma