I panicked we wouldn’t get our family home
Dad-of-two Bamidele Sotonwa was for a turned down when he first applied mortgage on a brand new family home. But finding the right mortgage broker in. means the family are about to move rating before I “I did check my credit applied for a mortgage,” says Bamidele, 38, a biomedical scientist from Birmingham. “I had a default on a to payment four years ago and wanted my see if it was still there and affecting credit rating.” Bamidele, who has two girls, Sharon, three, and Shalom, one, found out the default will stay on his credit report for six years. He explains: “I decided to go ahead and try and get a mortgage. We had found a new-build home that was perfect for the family. I applied for a mortgage via the developers. I was declined and began to panic. I thought we wouldn’t be able to get the home we needed for our growing family. “My wife Toyin and I decided we would have to save up as much as possible to get a bigger deposit and, hopefully, that would give us a better chance of getting a loan. We originally had 5%, the usual amount you need for a new build. “While saving I came across Trussle, an online mortgage broker. I was reluctant to use them at first as I hadn’t heard of them. But I decided I had nothing to lose. A few hours after filling details they came back in some online situation with my to me. I explained my credit score and they said they could help me to find a potential lender. to “I was delighted as they helped me secure a loan with Nationwide. all “After having a rocky start this has got a worked in my family’s favour as we bigger deposit together, double our original amount, and have got an even bigger house, still with three bedrooms but more space and in a much nicer area. The girls are very excited to be moving in.” A third of people aged over 50 would be put off saving for the future if they had to pay for their own care costs down to their last £100,000.
Research from Saga Money shows the care costs plan put forward by the Conservative Party is unpopular, with threequarters of people not agreeing with having to sell the family home before or after death to pay for care.
Nine in 10 told Saga that they think there should be a care-fee cap and it should be set at £60,000.
More than eight out of 10 adults believe politicians don’t understand the day-to-day money problems faced by ordinary people.
Three-quarters are aware that the action of politicians affects their personal finances, yet four out of 10 don’t trust any party to do anything that will help them, according to research by credit report firm Noddle.
When asked about their current financial position, a fifth of people said they felt worse off than at the time of the last General Election in 2015, and half said they felt neither better nor worse off.
Almost a third want the personal tax allowance to rise, a quarter would like a cap on energy prices and a fifth said the minimum pay rate should rise.
June is the busiest month for people looking to move home or remortgage. Meanwhile, the New Year is typically thought to be the time when the largest numbers of people think about making their move. Figures from Yorkshire Building Society, the UK’s ninth largest mortgage lender, reveal that June ranks as the most popular month for the number of visits to its website over the past three years. June also features 15 times in the top 50 busiest days, way ahead of August which has 10. One theory is that parents want to organise things before the start of the school holidays.
HOW TO IMPROVE YOUR CREDIT SCORE Check everything is up to date and correct on your credit score. Ensure you are on the electoral register. Make all monthly payments on time. Think about taking out a specialist credit repair credit card from firms such as Barclaycard, Metro Bank, Aqua and Capital One, but only use it for a small purchase each month and repay in full. Stop credit cards you don’t use – lenders get nervous if you have access to too much credit. Don’t live in a constant overdraft. Don’t have credit card balances that teeter on your credit limit and make sure you repay more than the minimum each month.