Hi irnbruhead7 and congratulations on having completed your trust deed.

Your trust deed will remain on your credit record for around since six years since it started, so will be there for nearly another three years.

You cannot change this, but, if you choose you can layer some good credit history on top of the previous problems. Mobile phone contracts are one possibility to do this.

Another possibility, and one which you will need to decide is suitable for you or not, is to take out a credit card. There are some low-limit high interest cards available to persons with poor credit scores. If you do take it out we would advise that it is used for a single purchase each month (perhaps petrol or a supermarket shop) and repaid in full as soon as the bill arrives to avoid interest. This obviously comes with a warning, if the card ends up with a rolling balance on it the interest could be extremely expensive.

Graeme Leckie is a mortgage broker who writes on the site from time to time. We'll email him and ask him to add his thoughts when he next visits the site about mortgage deposits etc. A relatively recent trust deed completion will make a difference in terms of the mortgages available to you and the terms at which they may be offered.

Graeme has written previously that you should obtain your credit file and ensure that your creditors clear up any defaults that are showing.

I know what you mean about the credit report sites; never as straightforward as they claim to be when it comes to getting a free report. As there is no urgency perhaps you should just write to one of them asking for a paper copy of the record. Equifax or Experian will provide this for a payment of ?ú2 I think.

Other visitors may have other ideas about how to go about re-establishing a decent credit record (after a trust deed is completed) that they can add here...

Irnbruhead7,

Amy has given you some good advice. Please make sure that you are on the voters roll, and i would suggest applying for a credit repair credit card. If you are a first time buyer you will need a sizeable deposit , and the longer you wait to apply the higher the chances of passing the credit score . Lenders will also look at employment history and ideally are looking for stability and continuity . Finally in applying for any credit always put down a land line contact number as this can often make the difference between a narrow pass or fail.