It is an exasperated cry we hear again and again from frustrated would-be home-owners. “I have been paying all this rent for years and years, yet mortgage lenders won’t take that into account”. But this could be about to change thanks to a scheme backed by Big Issue Invest and a petition that has captured the public imagination to such an extent it is now set to be debated in Parliament.
Home ownership could now be one step closer for thousands of renters, with Rental Exchange showing the way.
https://youtu.be/77fYrNlPikU
The scheme, which has been running since 2012, has grown to the extent that regular payments from more than 850,000 social housing tenants (around a quarter of all UK social housing tenants) are now shared with Experian, meaning they can be included in credit rating scores in future. The scheme has since expanded to include private renters.
With an estimated 13.5million UK adults currently estimated to have little or no recorded credit history or information on file, from which mortgage lenders assess their ability to pay, the scheme is already of vital importance to opening up the housing market.
And the groundbreaking idea could be about to go one step further, which could open up the possibility of getting a mortgage to thousands of people who have diligently paid rent yet found this does not help their credit rating or improve their ability to buy a home, even if the amount paid per month is likely to be similar.
