Short-term missed loan payments
Let’s start by talking about the short-term issues. These are the ones that are going to immediately impact you if you miss a single payment. While missing a single payment on your loan is never going to be a good thing, it is unlikely that there will be a massive impact on your life. You will want to try and catch up with those missed loan payments as soon as you can, though.
FEES
Your major concern will be fees. Lenders will have late payment fees written into the borrowing contract. You will also have to pay the extra interest due to the missed payment. It is not uncommon for the fees for a missed payment to be around the £25 mark. If you pay for your loan by direct debit then your bank will charge you a fee for the failed direct debit too. The fees that your bank can charge you will be capped each month, though. You will need to contact your bank if you want to know how much they charge for a failed direct debit. To cap it all off, missed payments basically mean that you have added another month to the length of your loan (unless you catch up right away!)
NOTED ON YOUR CREDIT REPORT
The missed payment will also be reported to the credit agencies. This means that if any company carries out credit checks on you in the future, the missed payment will come up. This will hurt your credit score. Now, a single missed payment is probably not going to have a huge impact on your credit file. Not if it is a minor blip. However, if you continue to miss payments, you will be running into some serious issues. This leads us to long-term consequences.
Long-term missed loan payments
If you miss loan payments continually (multiple months in a row), then you will start to run into some serious issues.
PAYMENT DEFAULT NOTIFICATIONS
After around 3-months of missed payments (in a row), you will get a default notification. This tells you that you have breached the terms of the loan. The lender will then give details on what you need to do to catch up. What happens at this stage will be dependent on the lender. However, one thing is guaranteed. That default notification is going to land on your credit report and it is going to seriously impact you for the next 6-years or so.
If your personal loan is secured
If you have a secured personal loan, you have to remember that the lender has the right to take away your security and sell it to cover the debt. Quite often this is going to be a last resort, though. They may look to other methods first.
LONG TERM IMPACT ON YOUR CREDIT RATING
Multiple missed payments and payment default notifications are pretty much going to ruin your chances of obtaining credit for years. You likely won’t be able to get a mortgage, for instance. While you may be able to combat the negative hit on your credit file using a few credit repair techniques, it is still going to be exceedingly difficult. Many potential lenders will never, ever consider somebody that has defaults on their account.
COUNTY COURT JUDGMENTS (CCJS)
If you are still not paying your debt, then the lender can go to the county court. They are basically giving you an order to pay. This is going to have an even bigger impact on your credit history. A CCJ will be a demand to pay your debt in full. However, there may be ways to negotiate an instalment plan here.
Conclusion
Missing personal loan or repayments can have a detrimental impact, particularly if it happens multiple times in a row. If you are struggling to make a payment on time, then reach out to the lender. They will likely be more than happy to discuss the issue with you and come up with a solution. However, you must do this before you miss a payment. Now Loan is a short term loan matching service with an extensive lending panel. Their advice is first reaching out to a lender, but, if no resolve is found then and you believe you may be getting into debt that you can’t afford, call Step Change Debt Charity for professional advice.
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