Car finance when your credit history is not perfect

No broker can promise you finance, and you should be wary of any that does. What we can say is that our panel includes lenders who specialise in impaired credit, and that being declined once does not mean being declined everywhere.

Specialist lenders weight things differently to a high-street bank. Recency and pattern usually matter more than the headline number.

• ✓ How recently anything went wrong, and what you have done since.
• ✓ Whether current commitments are being paid on time.
• ✓ Affordability — income against outgoings, with room to spare.
• ✓ Stability of address and employment.
• ✓ Whether you can put down a deposit.

A default from four years ago with a clean record since reads very differently to a missed payment last month, even where the score is similar.

Being straightforward about this is more useful than being encouraging.

• ✓ Rates will be higher than for someone with a clean file. That is how the risk is priced.
• ✓ A deposit will often be required, and will usually improve what is available.
• ✓ The choice of vehicle may be narrower, particularly on age and mileage.
• ✓ Maintaining the agreement will improve your credit file over time.

The worst thing to do with an impaired file is apply repeatedly. Each hard search is recorded and visible to other lenders, and a cluster of them reads badly.

Our eligibility check uses a soft search, so you can see where you stand before anything is recorded. If the answer is no for now, we will tell you what would change it.