So myself & my husband have £56,000 of o/s debt on low monthly repayment plans which all defaulted more than 10yrs ago.
Our finances are much improved with a decent income but we cannot afford to pay the debt off, therefore it has been fine just paying a minimums amount for many years. We’d really like to get a mortgage and have been generously been gifted 50% of the value of the property from family if we go ahead (they are unaware of the debt). We can only get a tiny mortgage when we’ve looked into it due to our debt.
My question is, if we offer & are accepted by the creditors to pay a lower amount to pay off the debts will this go against our credit report? Currently our credit rating is really good as these are such old debts they don’t show & I understand the default disappears after 6yrs whether paid off or not. But if we managed to get the creditors to accept & pay off the debts will it be worth it to then get a mortgage or will our credit file then go down a lot?