Top 3 Quick Loans for those with a poor credit rating

Published by Jon Edward at April 8, 2020

1. Logbook Loans

An option for bad credit borrowers looking for a secured loan.

Typically advertised with the promise of fast cash and no credit checks, logbook loans are available in sums of between £500 and £50,000 depending on the value of your car.

Please Note – Lenders will generally offer a loan worth up to 50% of the value of your vehicle.

When you apply for a logbook loan, your lender will ask you to hand over either the vehicle’s logbook or registration document, as proof of ownership.
You will then be asked to sign a credit agreement and a form called a ‘bill of sale’, which means that the lender will temporarily own your vehicle until the loan has been repaid in full.
Once your loan has been fully repaid, the ownership of your vehicle will be transferred back into your name.
However, if you fail to make all of the repayments, the lender will be quite within their rights to sell the vehicle and use the proceeds to recoup some of their losses.
Normally you are paid the loan by cheque, which takes several days to clear. Some logbook loan companies offer a quick cash service, but they may charge fees of up to 4% of the loan for this.

For more on the definition of a logbook loan and how they work, please click here.

2. Text Loans

Text loans are a fairly new innovation in the loan market and work by allowing the lender and the borrower to complete the loan application via text message.

Please Note – Because the application process is entirely paper-free (i.e. you do not have to print any forms and returning them via fax or post), the process will be far quicker to complete.

Loans of up to £1000 repayable over 12 months are typically available and you can submit your application using either a smartphone or tablet.
If accepted you will complete the loan agreement via text message.
Once you have verified your application via a text message, your lender will credit the funds to your bank account with 24 hours.

Warning – It must be noted that text message loans can be very expensive. In the following article – “Text message loans service is a costly convenience” – the Guardian explores why convenience comes at a premium cost.

3. Guarantor Loans

The cheapest loan available in the ‘bad credit’ market.

They are unsecured loans that require the borrower to have a second person acting as a guarantor.
Loans typically last 12 and 60 months and you will generally be able to borrow anywhere between £1,000 and £10,000 regardless of your credit rating.
Family members and close friends are both popular choices to act in the role of loan guarantor.

Should you run into difficulty, check out – Guarantor loan debts. How to deal with them

Also see: Are there no credit check guarantor loans?

Payday Loans 👎

If would be remiss of us to discuss quick loans without a brief mention of payday loans.

Whilst the payday loan can provide quick access to credit, it is at the same time a very expensive. For more information see:

Do you know your credit rating?

Before you apply for a ‘bad credit loan’, it’s worth checking to see what your credit score is.

Check My File is a multi-agency credit checking service that will allow you to check your credit rating across all the UK’s three main credit reference agencies (Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion).

You can try checkmyfile free for 30 days, then for just £14.99 a month after, which you can cancel online at any time.