My loan or credit card application was declined, will I still be able to get a mortgage?

If you have applied for a credit card or loan and you were rejected, then the first course of action, before applying for a mortgage, is to find out why your application was rejected.

Each lender has their own criteria when assessing a customer - and if they think you could potentially default on repayments, they will choose to decline your application.

Whether your application is accepted or not often depends on which company you apply to. Some lenders won't consider someone who has any black marks on their credit record, whereas others specialise in offering credit to people with past credit problems.

If your loan or credit card application is declined then contact the company for the name and address of the credit reference agency they referred to. Then you need to contact the credit reference agency and obtain a copy of your credit report. Consequently you will be able to see what the problem is, and inform the agency if the information is out of date or incorrect. Once that is sorted, your future applications for credit should run more smoothly.

If the credit report is correct and you do have outstanding or recently paid arrears, then you will have to accept that you can only apply to lenders who specialise in borrowers with a poor credit history. This will usually mean paying higher interest rates. The bonus is that in a few years time, once you have successfully adhered to a repayment schedule, you will have a good credit rating again. Then you will be able to get better credit deals with standard, mainstream lenders.