"Bad credit" is not one thing, and that is the single most important fact about getting a mortgage with it. A missed mobile phone payment three years ago and an unsatisfied default from last year are both "adverse credit", and they do completely different things to your options. Lenders price and assess each type separately, which means the useful question is never "can I get a mortgage with bad credit" but "what specifically is on my file, how old is it, and which lenders care about that".
This guide takes the main types one at a time. For the lender positions and what we can arrange, see our mortgages with bad credit page.
One thing to clear up first: there is no single UK credit score that lenders see. The numbers Experian, Equifax and TransUnion show you are their own products, and no mortgage lender uses them. Each lender scores your file against its own criteria, which is why one can decline you and the next accept you on the same information.
| What is on your file | How long it stays | Practical effect |
|---|---|---|
| Late payment markers | 6 years from the month recorded | Mild. One or two old ones are frequently ignored. A pattern is what gets noticed. |
| Default, satisfied | 6 years from the default date | Moderate. The lender can see you put it right. |
| Default, unsatisfied | 6 years from the default date | Significant. Many lenders will require it settled before completion. |
| CCJ | 6 years — unless paid in full within one month | Significant, and a hard decline for many high street lenders. |
| Debt management plan | While active, plus the markers behind it | Usually blocks mainstream lending while running. |
| IVA | 6 years from the start date | Severe. A small number of lenders consider it once completed. |
| Bankruptcy | 6 years from the bankruptcy date | Severe, and there is a second register involved — see below. |
A missed payment shows as a marker against that account. One or two, a few years old, on something small, are routinely overlooked — particularly by lenders that read the file rather than scoring it mechanically. What does damage is a pattern, and above all recent missed payments on a mortgage or rent, which lenders read as the closest available evidence of how you will treat them.
A default is recorded when an account is formally closed as unpaid. It stays for six years from the default date whether or not you later pay it, so settling it does not remove it — but it does change it to "satisfied", and that distinction carries real weight. An unsatisfied default says there is an outstanding debt; a satisfied one says there was a problem and you dealt with it.
If you have unsatisfied defaults and you are planning to apply, settling them is usually the highest-value thing you can do, and many lenders will insist on it as a condition anyway.
A County Court Judgment is recorded on the Register of Judgments, Orders and Fines, and is kept for six years. But if you pay the full amount within one month of the judgment, the record does not stay on file for the six years. Pay it at any point after that month and it is marked satisfied but remains for the full term.
That one-month window is the difference between a clean file and six years of explaining yourself to lenders. If a judgment has just been made against you and you can clear it, clear it immediately — this is genuinely urgent in a way almost nothing else on this page is.
A DMP is an informal arrangement to pay reduced amounts. It is not itself recorded as an insolvency, but the reduced payments behind it usually generate markers or defaults, and most mainstream lenders will not lend while one is running. The realistic sequence is to complete the plan, then wait for the markers to age.
An Individual Voluntary Arrangement stays on your credit file for six years from the date it started, not from when it finished — which matters, because a five-year IVA can be nearly off your file by the time you complete it. A small number of specialist lenders will consider an application once an IVA is satisfactorily completed, typically with a larger deposit.
You are usually discharged from bankruptcy automatically after 12 months, but it remains on your credit file for six years from the bankruptcy date, and the Individual Insolvency Register is only updated within three months of discharge.
There is also a second record that specifically affects mortgages. Your name is normally removed from the Land Charges register — which mortgage lenders check — about five years after the bankruptcy, assuming the trustee has finished dealing with any property. So being discharged is not the same as being lendable, and the timeline is longer than most people expect.
This is the part that surprises people. A CCJ from five and a half years ago is often a smaller obstacle than a default from eight months ago, because lenders are judging the risk you represent now rather than ranking historical misfortunes.
Most lender criteria are written in bands — nothing in the last 12 months, nothing in the last 24, nothing in the last 36 — and the number of lenders available to you grows sharply as you cross each one. If your most recent adverse entry is eleven months old, waiting a month or two before applying can move you from a handful of specialist lenders to a considerably wider panel at better rates. That is often the single cheapest piece of advice on a case.
Payday loans. A number of lenders decline outright where there is recent payday lending, even where every loan was repaid on time. The logic is that using it at all signals a cash-flow position they do not want. Repaying well does not help you here in the way it would with other credit.
Buy now, pay later. These agreements increasingly appear on credit files, and while a well-managed account is not usually damaging in itself, several active arrangements read as reliance on short-term credit. Clearing them down before you apply is sensible. The guide to what a lender does not want to see covers both of these alongside the other things visible on bank statements.
More than a clean applicant, and how much more depends almost entirely on the age and type of the adverse credit.
These are indicative market positions rather than quotations, and they move. Our borrowing calculator gives you a rough affordability picture, but with adverse credit the deposit and the lender list matter at least as much as the income multiple.
Accurate adverse information cannot be removed from your credit file. Not by you, not by us, and not by a company charging a fee to do it. Only genuine errors can be corrected. Any firm offering to "wipe" or "repair" correct entries is selling you something that does not exist, and some of what is suggested in that space — such as disputing accurate entries in volume — can make matters worse.
What can be done is real but less dramatic: correct what is wrong, settle what is outstanding, add context where there is context, wait where waiting helps, and apply to a lender whose criteria you actually meet.
If the pressure is live — balances you are struggling to service rather than markers from the past — read the debt consolidation guide before doing anything else. And if the debts are substantial relative to your income, speak to StepChange, National Debtline or MoneyHelper first. All three are free and independent, and none of them is trying to sell you a mortgage.
There is no single waiting period. Some specialist lenders will consider a case with a default registered in the last 12 months, usually with a larger deposit and a higher rate. The number of available lenders rises substantially at the 24-month and 36-month marks, and a default drops off your file entirely six years after the default date. If you are close to one of those thresholds, waiting is often worth more than shopping around.
No. It stays for six years from the default date either way. But it changes from unsatisfied to satisfied, and lenders treat those very differently — an unsatisfied default indicates an outstanding debt, and many lenders will require it settled as a condition of lending.
Yes, if you pay the full amount within one month of the judgment — the record does not then stay on file for the usual six years. Pay it after that month and it is marked satisfied but remains for the full six years. If a judgment has just been made against you, this is genuinely time-critical.
Yes, but the timeline is longer than people expect. You are usually discharged after 12 months, the bankruptcy stays on your credit file for six years from the bankruptcy date, and your name is normally removed from the Land Charges register — which mortgage lenders check — about five years afterwards. Some specialist lenders will consider a discharged bankrupt before the six years are up, typically with a deposit of 25% or more.
Not on its own. On a joint application both files are assessed, so a good credit history alongside yours helps with affordability but does not erase your adverse entries — the lender still has to accept them. Guarantor arrangements are far less common than they were and are not a general workaround. It is usually more productive to find a lender whose criteria fit your actual situation.
No. There is no single UK credit score, and the numbers the credit reference agencies show you are their own products. Each lender applies its own scoring and criteria to the underlying data, which is why decisions differ between lenders on identical information. Specialist adverse-credit lenders tend to underwrite manually rather than score at all.
No — this is one of the more damaging things you can do. Each application leaves a hard search on your file, and a run of searches followed by declines makes the next lender more cautious. On an adverse case the criteria should be checked before anything is submitted, which is the main practical reason to use a broker here.
Our fee for a mortgage is typically £795, agreed with you in writing before any work begins, and you will never be asked for a payment before you have received advice. The full schedule is on our fees page. On an adverse case, getting to the right lender first time rather than after two declines is usually worth considerably more than that.
Adverse credit cases are not decided by a score, they are decided by whether the detail of your file fits a particular lender's rules — and that is knowable in advance rather than something to discover by applying.
Our Sheffield advisers will look at what is actually on your file, tell you honestly whether now is the right time to apply or whether waiting a few months would materially improve your options, and go to lenders whose criteria you meet. If the answer is "wait", we will say so.
Get in touch for a straightforward assessment, or call 0800 862 0811.
Your home may be repossessed if you do not keep up repayments on your mortgage. The deposit levels and lender positions described here are indicative of the market and are not quotations — criteria change and your own options will depend on your circumstances. Record-keeping periods are as published by GOV.UK at the time of writing.