Bad credit mortgage: the Reddit threads worth reading
Search Reddit for 'mortgage with a default' and you get hundreds of threads, most of them one anxious question and a pile of guesses. These five are the ones where the original post gives enough detail to learn from.
5 threads, each checked live on 2026-08-27. Reddit posts are other people's experiences, not advice; the commentary underneath is ours.
The threads worth reading
1 · r/UKPersonalFinance · 2026-08-13
How badly will a credit default affect getting a mortgageA forgotten student-account debt was defaulted and passed to a collector before the poster found out; it is now cleared and they want to know how much a single satisfied default hurts a mortgage application.
2 · r/UKPersonalFinance · 2026-01-26
Getting a mortgage with defaultsSeveral defaults nearly 4 years old, some satisfied and some on payment plans; buying with a partner who has clean credit, £60k combined income, 10% deposit, hoping for around £250k.
3 · r/UKPersonalFinance · 2026-06-29
CCJ and mortgage — do I have any chance?A 24-year-old with one £800 CCJ from a private parking ticket, a year old and satisfied, who has read online that a CCJ makes a mortgage near-impossible and wants to know if that is true.
4 · r/HousingUK · 2025-05-06
Has anyone managed to get a mortgage with a CCJ on their record?A £300 CCJ from 2021 discovered only on a recent credit check (the paperwork went to an old house-share); the poster plans to pay it and asks whether high-street lenders will still refuse while it shows until 2027.
5 · r/HousingUK · 2025-08-03
Mortgage application with 5-year-old CCJ (£500) + 2 missed payments (£6)A couple on £40k combined wanting £180k, with low credit scores, a CCJ from just under 6 years ago and two tiny missed payments, asking what their real chances are at the top of their affordability.
What a broker adds
The answer in every one of these threads depends on three things the posters rarely state: how old the default or CCJ is, whether it is satisfied, and how big it was. Most high-street lenders decline a CCJ registered in the last 3 years, and several use a £500 threshold; the specialist lenders price by how many months have passed. A broker's job here is to put the case to the lenders whose published criteria already say yes, rather than burning a hard search on one that will not.
Paying a default or CCJ off does not remove it, but it changes which lenders are available and at what rate — and registering the satisfaction date matters more than most posters realise.
Related reading: Bad credit mortgage calculator · Should I pay off my default before applying? · Should I pay off my CCJ?
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