First-Time Buyer Mortgage with CCJs

Can I get a mortgage as a first-time buyer if I have CCJs?

Yes they can, if a first-time buyer hasn’t had much credit in the past, often they struggle with credit scores, but can work around that.

CCJs also impact your credit score massively. Again, we can work around it – we can use lenders that will credit search rather than credit score. For a first-time buyer, lenders will want to understand why you have a CCJ, what’s led to it, the value of it and how recent it was.

If you had a CCJ from last month, for example, but you’ve got the money for a deposit, we’re going to need a story to explain it to the lender. But having a CCJ as a first-time buyer isn’t going to stop you from getting a mortgage.

Do my CCJs need to be satisfied or paid off to get a mortgage as a first-time buyer?

No. Yesterday I researched quite a complex case with a similar scenario. Although the client in question would have had more options had their CCJ been satisfied, it’s so close to coming off the credit report there’s not much benefit now in paying it off.

Before you make any changes around your credit, just sit down with a mortgage broker. Morally, everybody should of course be paying their debts off, but people can get CCJs for parking fines and phone bills that were incorrect. It doesn’t mean they’re bad payers. So let’s sit down and have a look at your credit report.

How old do my CCJs need to be before I can apply for a mortgage as a first-time buyer?

You can get a mortgage if you had a CCJ put on your report yesterday. The date it was reported is important, but it’s not going to stop you.

What makes a bigger difference is the type of CCJ, the value and whether it’s a mail order, a utility bill or a mortgage.

If you’ve got one for £50 – which is quite common, especially for parking fines – they don’t have too much impact. Meanwhile somebody with a CCJ for £5,000 will encounter a few problems. Lenders are likely to want that to be at least six months old.

How soon can I apply for a mortgage as a first-time buyer once my CCJs are settled?

In theory, the same day – or even before they’ve been settled. Some lenders will actually conditionally offer. They might say that as long as it’s satisfied by the completion date, they will ignore it.

That allows you to go through the full underwriting process and get your decision before you start parting with your cash.

Do sit down with a mortgage broker, because we can explain what’s available to you in terms of interest rate and monthly repayments – both if you pay the CCJ off or leave it. Once it’s been satisfied for three years, that’s a magic number for CCJs and bad credit in general, and will increase your options.

It can also dictate the deposit amount. The longer ago the issue, the lower the deposit you might potentially need.

Does the value or number of CCJs affect my chances of being approved for a mortgage as a first-time buyer?

The number of CCJs is not so important. We’ve done mortgages for people with over 20 CCJs and defaults, because things have really gone wrong for them.

The value can have more of an effect. CCJs of a certain value can be ignored, even if they’re not satisfied. If they are from a communications supplier like EE or Vodafone, sometimes they can be ignored – but high value CCJs are more likely to be taken into consideration.

I would sit down with you and get a list together of the dates the CCJs went onto the credit report, the values and when they’re due to fall off the report. Then we’ll start looking at where you can go and what’s available.

Are there government schemes available to help first-time buyers who have CCJs?

You can still use shared ownership, 5% deposit mortgages, or even some of the 100% deals that are around as we speak today in October 2025, even if you’ve got a CCJ.

If it’s really recent and high value, you might struggle. But if you’ve seen a house you want and you’ve been told you can’t get a mortgage because of the CCJ, it’s always worth a conversation with us. We’ll chat with you for half an hour, spend a few hours working through your documents and come back to you.

If we can’t help you, we’ll tell you when we can. If it needs satisfying, we’ll tell you. If it’s best for you to come back after a certain period of time, we’ll give you that advice.

Will I need a bigger deposit for a mortgage as a first-time buyer because of my credit history and CCJs?

Potentially. There are two kinds of lenders: lenders that manually underwrite and credit search as opposed to credit score; plus the lenders that will score you.

CCJs negatively impact credit score, for obvious reasons. Sometimes we can still get them through with lenders that credit score and have competitive interest rates, which is great.

We just need to make sure we’ve got everything in order – the dates, values and details – to make sure our recommendation is clear and the correct thing for the client.

Will I have to pay a higher interest rate as a first-time buyer because of my CCJs?

In most scenarios, yes, but do seek advice. The value and the background are really important here. It’s very difficult to tell unless we have all the information.

We would explain what mortgage deal you could have got without the CCJ, and what you’re actually going to pay because you do have it. It’s really important for a customer to understand the impact. People think CCJs stop you from getting mortgages – but they don’t. Quite often, they just affect the interest rate and the monthly repayment.