Thank you, that's extremely helpful and gives me a plan to work towards. Very much appreciated.

maxsteam:

debz111:

would the Vanquis credit card add anything extra to these to help improve my credit score quicker or not?

No. In my opinion, as you will be recorded as using a card that is marketed specifically at people who are not good with money, it could actually put some lenders off.

I would disagree with this. The lenders will look at the ability to control the credit that is used and not who that credit is with. I would agree if the TYPE of credit was typically that used by people with bad credit such as Pay Day Loans, lenders do not like clients that rely on this type of lending but a credit card is used by all levels of credit score and it is the control of that credit - repaying the outstanding balance IN FULL ervery month that the lenders will take note of and if you can manage to repay the balance in full every month then your score will improve dramatically.

The reason your credit score is still so low is that you have the "arrangements to pay" still in place. The fact that you still have a debt arrangement will leave most lenders cold no matter when your defaults expire.

My personal opinion would be to use the 10% deposit that you have in place already and clear the debts in full. The money you were then using to clear the debts then goes to create a new deposit which can then earn you interest instead of the debt drawing more lenders interest. Take out the credit card for just 6 months, put your petrol or some other low cost monthly need and then at the end of the month make sure you CLEAR THE BALANCE IN FULL.

The fact that you no longer have the Arrangement to Pay weill mean that your credit score can improve and will do quite quickly (not over night). The correct use of the credit card will boost your credit score. Make sure both of you are on the electoral roll for your current address - The link below will take you to a page that will search for your local authorityif you need to reapply

http://local.direct.gov.uk/LDGRedirect/LocationSearch.do?searchtype=1&LGSL=364&LGIL=0&Style=&formsub=t&requestType=locator&text=cw4

Once your credit score has improved then switch your Vanquis card to a more mainstream (lower rate) card. Hopefully within a year your score will have improved sufficiently to apply for a mortgage and you may have enough deposit for the house you want.....and the 6 years deadline will have passed and the defaults have left your credit score

Good Luck

Thanks for the advice. I think the last 'bad' item recorded will have been the defaults as since then I've had arrangements to pay and, with the exception of the couple mentioned, have repaid them. Hopefully, things will start looking up soon then!
Thanks again

debz111:

would the Vanquis credit card add anything extra to these to help improve my credit score quicker or not?

No. In my opinion, as you will be recorded as using a card that is marketed specifically at people who are not good with money, it could actually put some lenders off. One thing that would help your score is to repay the credit accounts. Other than that, you should repay the old debts as agreed and your credit records will improve significantly six years after whenever the last "bad" item was recorded.

Hi, just after a little advice please.

A few years ago I got into a lot of debt and defaulted on a lot of my credit cards, store cards etc. I have bit by bit been repaying these debts and still have left about 6.5k to pay (out of about 30k). Even though my actual defaults were nearly 6 years ago now my credit score is still very poor (about 195 last time I checked) and I understand this is because I still have this 6.5k outstanding with a couple of creditors with an 'arrangement to pay'.

How much will my credit score improve once these are settled? - I'm envisaging it taking me possibly another 18 months to repay these. I ask as my partner and I would like to buy a house in the next 2/3 years (he has very good credit and we would have a minimum of 10% deposit) and wonder if i'm being a little too optimistic?

Vanquis bank are forever offering me a credit card( I realise it's at a ridculous interest rate) to improve my credit score, however, I do currently have a couple of credit accounts -littlewoods/next - that aren't defaulted and I pay every month as I should, would the Vanquis credit card add anything extra to these to help improve my credit score quicker or not?

Thanks