Ultimately no company can do anything more than you can to address any debt issues you have. You can find out if there are any errors by carefully sifting through your credit files. You can also move your credit balances, where possible, to accounts which carry lesser interest payments. Above all, you can best ensure that you make the correct payments on time or get in touch with the lending companies to lessen the payments if they allow you to do this.

Credit scores, as long as you 'play by the rules', generally increase over time and the negative impacts of bad actions, such as defaults, carry less weight. Why pay a company large sums of money for something which you can do yourself?

Cashback mortgages are those which provide a lump sum cash incentive on take-up. This makes them marketable towards first time buyers, who may find themselves particularly cash-strapped when they've completed their first purchase and lacking funds for projects like decorating.

Cashback mortgages are not restricted in terms of the broader types of mortgage they can accompany: you can get cashback mortgages offered at fixed interest rates and variable interest rates for example.

If you are thinking of applying for a mortgage offering cashback, you should carefully examine matters such as the interest rate you'll be paying and any start-up fees you have to pay; you may find that for some mortgage products, the lump sum comes at a far higher cost than you first thought.