The Importance of Changing Your Address Ahead of a Mortgage

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Don't Pretend to Live Somewhere Else

Records of Your Address

Keeping Your Address Up-to-Date

What else can be done to help me obtain a mortgage?

Gifted Deposit

Check My File Credit Report

Don’t Pretend to Live Somewhere Else

Once you begin the process of moving home in Derby, there will be a lot for you to deal with stress-wise. One area that is always tedious, but it essential to make sure you get right, is updating all records of your address, to make sure that bills and other post goes to the right home.

There will no doubt be a lot for you to update, from your local GP, to your Amazon shopping account and more! It goes beyond just making sure you get your post though, as consistent address information is helpful in many other areas as well.

Most of the time, addresses can be missed when you are updating everything, which can leave you being linked to multiple addresses. What you may not realise though, is it can impact your credit score too. The less varied addresses you have, the better it is for your credit score.

Because of how important your credit score is to a lot of areas, you need to make sure that your credit score is looking in a good way, especially if you are looking to apply for a mortgage on a new home in Derby.

In more recent times, first time buyers in Derby and home movers in Derby seem to think they have a much bigger and better understanding of how their credit scores work and will look to use this to their advantage, keeping both old and newer addresses active.

Typically, this will be done if they have moved out of their family home with their parents, becoming private or council tenants. Even though they will now be living somewhere else, they don’t see the issue in leaving their credit cards, electoral roll info and bank statements at the old address they had.

Many think that with this type of practice, they can manipulate how it looks to seem like they have a long-standing and stable address in their name, rather than moving from address to address. In theory, this works, though in practice, it really does not.

Records of Your Address

The reason why this does not work, is that somewhere as time has gone on, if you have moved home in Derby, there will be a record of the new address on your credit report. Staying linked to your previous addresses is a flawed strategy, unfortunately.

Whether it’s through paying home bills, any car insurance you have, things that you have ordered from online stores like Amazon or eBay, or from anything else you have given your address over time, there will be a record of it existing on your credit file.

In turn, this can seem like you are actually living in two places at the same time or even like you have failed to disclose important information to the mortgage lender. In either case, this can have an impact on your ability to achieve mortgage success, as this will be based on trust.

Keeping Your Address Up-to-Date

The best thing that anyone who is looking to purchase a new home in Derby and apply for a mortgage can do, is to make sure that every record of your address is completely accurate and your accounts are all updated.

This means you need to be sure that all of your online shopping accounts, the electoral roll, your credit cards and pretty much anything else that springs to mind that has your address on it, is all correct and the most up to date it can be, with your current home address only.

When you update your address to be where you are currently living on the electoral roll, make sure that you have definitely got the right moving in and out dates, as getting this wrong can also make it seem like you have two homes.

Making sure that all of your addresses and dates for moving in and out are correct is a far more open and honest way of handling your application for a mortgage in Derby, with a mortgage lender. Not only will it paint you in a good light, but it will make your mortgage process a little easier.

What else can be done to help me obtain a mortgage?

Aside from keeping your addresses on and offline up to date, there are also a collection of different tips that could prove to be quite useful to those applying for first time buyers mortgages in Derby, as they start their own home buying and home owning journey.

These tips include making sure you maintain your bank accounts, try to avoid unnecessary charges if you are able to do so and limit your gambling transactions, if you happen to be a regular gambler. Gambling can have a massive negative effect if you do this too often.

Remember that your bank account needs to represent a true reflection of how well you can keep up monthly payments, generate income and handle your finances in a suitable way. This is a big determining factor in your ability to obtain a mortgage.

Gifted Deposit

A gifted deposit can be a great opportunity for a first time buyer in Derby to take their first steps towards homeownership. This is where a family member is able to gift you a portion of or even the full amount of a deposit to you, to help you buy your new or first home.

This is solely to be a gift, however, not a loan to be repaid. Your mortgage lender will want to see this in writing, to prove that this is the case.

Check My File Credit Report

We would always absolutely recommend that customers, whether they are new or existing, they should take a look at obtaining an up-to-date credit report as soon as possible.

Check My File is a really great tool that can pull together information from a variety of sources, such as Experian and Equifax, in order to get a more complete view of your financial position. You get a 30 day free trial, that can be cancelled at any time, before it rolls onto £14.99 a month.

Try it FREE for 30 days, then £14.99 a month – cancel online anytime.

Date Last Edited: December 6, 2023