Getting approved

Can I get a home loan if I am blacklisted or have a low credit score?

Not while you are under debt review or have active judgments against your name. Those records do clear, though, and a low score on its own is not a no. The check is free and tells you exactly where you stand.

Let us be straight with you, because this question deserves a straight answer. If you are currently under debt review, or there are active judgments against your name, no bank in South Africa will register a bond for you right now. That is the honest position and we would rather you hear it from us than after an application.

But there is a lot of space between that and a clean record, and most people asking this question are somewhere in the middle.

Blacklisted is not really a thing

There is no single list that you are on or off. What exists is your credit record: a history of what you have borrowed and whether you paid it on time. Lenders read that history and form a view. So the useful question is not whether you are blacklisted, it is what your record currently says and how long it will keep saying it.

How long things stay on your record

• Missed and late payments fade in weight as they age. Two years of clean behaviour on top of them counts for a great deal.
• Judgments can be rescinded once the debt is settled, and settling is the step most people skip.
• Debt review ends when you complete the programme and receive a clearance certificate. After that you can apply.
• A thin record, meaning almost no borrowing history at all, is its own problem. Banks cannot judge what they cannot see.

That last one surprises people. Buyers who have never borrowed anything sometimes struggle more than buyers with a small, well-managed account, because there is nothing to prove they repay.

What a low score actually costs you

A weaker record does not only decide yes or no. It sets your interest rate. Your rate is quoted off prime, and a stronger profile earns a rate below it while a weaker one earns a rate above. On a R500 000 bond, half a percent is roughly R160 a month, every month, for twenty years. That is the real price of a credit record, and it is why sorting it out before you buy is worth the wait.

A plan that works

• Get your free credit report. You are entitled to one a year, and you cannot fix what you have not read.
• Settle what is settled-able, smallest first. Get the paperwork confirming it, because records do not always update themselves.
• Pay every account on time for six to twelve months, even the small ones. Consistency is what moves a score.
• Do not open new accounts while you are waiting. Every application leaves a mark.
• Then check again, free, and see where you land.

We have watched buyers go from declined to approved inside a year doing exactly this. It is slow and it is unglamorous and it works.

What we will do

The check is free and it is a soft check, so it costs you nothing and leaves no mark. If it comes back as a no, we tell you which specific thing caused it and roughly how long it takes to clear. Then we leave you alone until you are ready, and you come back when you are. Nobody here is going to phone you every fortnight about it.