This is good advice. As you say, perhaps not popular, but for too many years we've been borrowing-mad. Its like a version of financial political correctness, where its wrong to say that people shoud generally live within their means, and if they find themselves in trouble they should just borrow further.

Not true - by all means if you can get a lower rate then fine, but the main thing is to reduce debt by paying off as much of it possible.

Actually it is even worse than that, it stays on your report for 6 years after it has been satisfied and even then they often just don't remove it so you have to contact them to get them to do that.

Whilst this default is still outstanding you will find it very difficult to get any credit with a decent APR. My advice, and I accept that this is never what people want to hear, is to tighten your belts and overpay where possible to reduce the required monthly payments and if this is not possible then you will have to save up and pay off debts as and when you have enough cash.

As always attempt to pay of debts with the highest APR first

Cerbius

Hey

As far as i am aware (although others may correct me) a default notice stays on your credit report for 6 years from when it was issued. So even when is paid off it remains there making it very difficult to obtain credit.

The 0% offers i was referring to was for balance transfers etc for any credit card balances you may have. What is your debt made up from? Loans and cards?

Many thanks for the reply Eco_warrior.

The default notice is currently with a debt collection agency and I'm quite close to paying it off. Once its paid off, does the default noice automatically get removed from my credit profile, so then I presume there would be no obstacle in obtaining a loan?

Secondly what are these 0% offers you speak off, I'm not sure I've come across these before.

The default notice is going to be the main problem for you Nandj. Most, if not all banks wont lend to someone with one until it drops off your credit file (6 years) and because you have a financial association with your partner this will affect them even if they apply solely in their own name. In addition to this they would have to be able to afford the loan without considering your income, so i personally would avoid doing that.

Also, I'm not sure that theres much truth in the "Credit Crunch" explanation they gave you as defaults caused declines even when the banks were said to be throwing money at customers a few years back.

Theres plenty of threads on here discussing loans so have a read through them and see what others are saying about specific lenders, and of course be very wary of brokers asking for fees up front.

Lastly, is a loan the only option for you? Have you considered 0% offers etc.

Good luck.

Hi, my partner and I have been trying to apply for a joint unsecured consolidation loan to reduce our monthly outgoings, we think we'll need roughly £15,000. My partner's credit history is impeccable with a score of 999 on the experian site, mine however was 820 as I have a default notice from a few years ago. We approached our bank who we've been with for a couple of years and we were refused an unsecured loan, we were given the reason the credit crunch was making the banks very strict who they were accepting. We then applied for the same amount at another bank we have a savings account with and today we found out we had been declined. We're a bit confused of where to go from here, we're not sure if we should now just apply for a loan in my partner's name given her remarkable credit score as maybe including me in the application might be making lenders think twice? However our credit profiles do include financial associations between us so I'm not sure this would make much difference? We're currently renting so do not have the option of getting a secured loan. Any ideas are greatly appeciated, together with any names of lenders that might be favourable towards us. Many thanks.