Bad credit rating, can I still go?

[uksammy]

Me and my partner are desperate to go to Oz and are applying for a skilled visa but we have £20,000 debt here (including our car which is on finance)

I'm a homemaker with 2 girls under 3, so have bad credit because I have no income. My fiance has bad credit as he had problems with Natwest.

I know they say once your out in Oz you start credit from scratch, but you should take bank account details with you...so then they'd know we had bad credit?

Any advice would be much appreciated. We pay off all our debts but will take years and years to finish them, we just scrape by each month with the money left over from our debts. I don't know what to do.

[uksammy]

Also do you get mortgages out there? Are they easy to get and how much each month would you say you pay for a place thats $300,000?

[kaz101]

Hi Uksammy,

Welcome to the forum.

At no stage did anyone ask about our credit in the UK or for our bank accounts. However for peace of mind that's something that you need to sort out but as long as it doesn't give you a criminal record in any way you should be okay.

Please be aware that costs over here can be more expensive than in the UK (although housing can be cheaper depending on where you move to). Check out the "Cost of living" thread for more info.

Also most people find that they need quite a bit of money to keep them going when they first get here. Will you have a house to sell and if so will that clear some of your debt and then will you have any thing left? I don't mean to be personal but I would hate for you to move over here and then for you to end up financially worse off! Also think that when you are paying off any UK debts from Oz you need to earn about A$2 for every £1 and that's before tax!

Look through the "PLEASE READ....." and "Thinking of emigrating" posts since the first thing to do is to make sure that you can get a visa.

Mortgages (often called home loans over here) depend very much on your monthly income and not your assets. Most people find themselves renting for quite a while before they buy a house which is why you need some money to come over here. If you check out the major banks such as NAB, INZ, St George's you will find online mortgage calculators. The mortgage interest rate is higher than the UK and is around 9% with some papers saying it will go to 10% before the end of the year. On A$300,000 you will need a deposit of about $60,000 (assuming 20% deposit) which is about £30,000. On NAB the monthly payment would be around A$2300 a month.

BTW I'm not a financial expert or an agent - just someone who's been through the move myself

Regards,
Karen

[uksammy]

Thanks for your reply, it was very helpful, the people on this forum are amazing, i've been looking through all the threads and have found it very useful. I think I shall ask my family to take a loan out for me and I can pay them back each month, though this will take 10 years to clear at about £200 a month. This is one option anyway so I won't let my debts hold me back....fingers crossed we get a skilled visa, though we're still awaiting a phonecall from Australia house.