How Will a CCJ affect my Remortgaging Options?

These days, a huge number of us have had debt problems in the past, so if you’ve had a CCJ you’re certainly not alone. Having a CCJ does not prevent you from remortgaging, although you may find it a little harder to get a good deal.

CCJ

A CCJ happens when a creditor you’ve failed to pay a bill to goes to the County Court in an attempt to get the funds. Depending on what the judge decides, if you settle the requirement within a month you will not have a CCJ recorded against you, however if you don’t it will remain on record for 6 years.

Credit

When you seek to obtain lending of any kind, particularly the substantial sums involved in mortgages and remortgages, the lender will carry out credit checks on you. The credit reference agencies who perform these checks look at the register of CCJs among other things.

If you have had a CCJ, lenders will likely consider you to be an increased risk for lending. This does not necessarily mean that they will refuse to give you a remortgage, although some will, but it will most probably mean that you don’t get offered the best rates on the market.

Options

If you’re looking to remortgage, you will obviously want to get the best deal available. Whether you’re looking for better rates, a lower monthly bill or a shorter term, or need funds for debt consolidation or to make improvements to your property perhaps, you should ideally shop around as much as you can, getting a feel for what types of remortgage deal are available.

Lenders

There are lenders who specialise in what’s called ‘adverse’ credit, i.e. they create lending deals for people with a less than perfect credit record. You may find some of these lenders available online, for example through comparison tools, however make sure you find out as much as you can about a company before using them, and that you fully understand the terms of any remortgage before going ahead with it.

You can also make use of resources such as remortgage calculators to best compare what will happen to your finances with the new deal, as opposed to other offers and of course your current deal.

Help

In some cases, remortgages for people who’ve had credit trouble will be best obtained through a mortgage broker or independent mortgage adviser. They have the ability to find out about remortgage offers that you may not otherwise come across, and can therefore be well worthwhile.

Although you can certainly get a remortgage if you’ve had a CCJ, think carefully before going ahead with one. If your finances have been in bad shape in the past, the last thing you want is to end up in a worse situation by choosing a poor remortgage deal, or one that you can’t manage the payments for. On the other hand, if you do manage a remortgage well, it can help to start building up your credit rating again.