County Court Judgment or CCJ can negatively impact your credit score and make it tough to secure a credit card. For someone with CCJ, getting approved for a credit card can be challenging. However, there are some specific credit cards that are designed for bad credit scores or CCJ.
Since it is tough to get a credit card with CCJ, one should first consider removing their County Court Judgment. If you are wondering how to get approved for a credit card with County Court Judgment, you should know a few things.
How to apply for a credit card with CCJ?
1. Satisfy the CCJ.
The thing with CCJ is that if you don’t fully pay the amount within 30 days of the judgment, the CCJ will stick to your credit file for six years. CCJ can bring down your credit score by 250 points. It can have a serious implication on your ability to get credit.
Fortunately, having a CCJ is not the end of the world situation. Many lenders and credit companies offer credit to people with bad credit or CCJ. However, such credit options come with high interest rates.
2. Avoid conducting ‘hard searches.’
Hard searches are conducted by credit companies when someone makes a formal application for a credit card. If you formally apply for too many credit cards in a short period, it will reflect on your credit score.
Frequently applying for credit cards can give the lender the impression that you are in financial trouble. The lender may choose not to approve your credit request.
3. Check your eligibility.
Before making a formal credit application, you need to run an eligibility check to see if the lender will approve your request. There are various tools available online for eligibility checks. Some eligibility checkers run a Soft Check on your credit history. Meaning the search will not affect your credit score. After analyzing your financial history and credit score, they will tell you if your credit application will get approved or not.
4. Make sure you can afford to pay back your credit.
Managing your finances properly is key to keeping your credit score above average. Thus, ensure you don’t borrow too much credit. If you are unable to make repayments, your credit score will go down, making it challenging to acquire more credits. If you haven’t paid your CCJ in full yet and applied for more credit, the authority can take further legal action against you.
One of the common questions people with CCJ ask is how I can check to see if I can get a credit card.
As mentioned above, unless you have paid your CCJ in full within one month of the judgment, the CCJ will stay on your file for six years. However, it doesn’t mean you can’t run a credit eligibility check. Since different lenders have different criteria for giving credits, you can still check if you are eligible for credit with CCJ.
Apart from standard credit cards, one can apply for credit-builder cards or credit cards for bad credit. However, one must know that such cards have high interest rates and low credit limits.