Remortgage with a CCJ

The acronym CCJ is the description for a County COurt Judgement. This occurs when a credit arrangement has been defaulted and no resolution has occured to enable the lender to get their money back. They apply to the COunty Court for a judgement against the borrower to try to enforce satisfactory payment. If the County COurt Judgement is paid off within 30 days then the borrower can apply to have the credit mark removed from their credit file. If it is not removed then it will stay on the credit file for 6 years. This can seriously affect their future ability to obtain credit as lenders will use credit file information to make lending decisions.

With remortgages CCJs will vary in their effect, depending on when, why and how much they were for. A mortgage lender may be willing to overlook a small utility bill CCJ that was issued from a previous address and has since been satisfied, but may may make a negative decision based upon a prior loan agreement where payments fell behing and moved to default and ccj.

Since the credit crunch of 2008, lenders are more cautious about releasing advances to borrowers with adverse credit of any kind. It can therefore be a tedious process sifting through mortgage product criteria and lender stipulations. It may be worth speaking to a mortgage broker to get a quick idea as to whether they think ou will be able to get the remortgage you want.