Do Secured Loans Do a Soft Search?

What is the difference between a soft search and a hard search?

Every time a company looks at your credit file, the agency records a search. The difference is in who can see it afterwards. A soft search is logged but shown only to you. It is used for quotes, eligibility checks, identity verification and your own report, and it carries no weight in any lender's scoring. A hard search is different: it is recorded as a formal application for credit, other lenders can see it, and it typically stays visible for 12 months.

A single hard search is not a problem; any dip in your score is small and short-lived. What lenders notice is a cluster: several hard searches in a short period, particularly across different types of credit, reads as somebody who is being turned down repeatedly or who is about to take on a lot of new borrowing at once.

Secured loans are regulated in the same way as mortgages, so the same rules apply. The lender will run a hard search when you formally apply, because it needs to see and rely on your full file before offering to lend against your home. Everything before that point, comparing lenders and checking your likely eligibility with a broker, can and should be done without one. Our secured loans hub covers the product end to end.

Does checking secured loan options with a broker involve a hard search?

Usually not. A secured loan broker's first job is to match your circumstances against lender criteria: your property value, your mortgage balance, how much you want to borrow, your income and any adverse credit. Much of that comes from you. To confirm the credit history part, a broker will commonly either ask you to share a copy of your own report or run a soft search through a multi-agency service. Neither is visible to lenders and neither touches your score.

A growing number of secured loan lenders also offer a decision in principle on a soft search basis. That gives you an indication of whether the lender is likely to consider the case, and at roughly what rate, before anything is committed to your file. Not every lender does this, and a decision in principle is not an offer, but where it is available a broker will typically use it so that a hard search is only run when the case is expected to succeed.

The hard search comes at full application. At that point you have chosen a lender, agreed the amount and term, and are asking them to lend. The lender searches your file, instructs a valuation of your home and checks your income documents. Valuation and legal work are separate costs; our guide to secured loans with no broker fee explains what else sits on the bill.

How many credit searches are too many?

There is no fixed number, because every lender's scorecard treats searches differently. As a rule of thumb, one or two hard searches in the last six months is unremarkable, three or four begins to raise questions, and five or more in a short window will make many lenders cautious whatever the rest of your file looks like. Lenders typically weigh searches from the last three to six months most heavily, and the effect fades well before the 12-month mark when they drop off other lenders' view.

The practical lesson is to avoid the scatter-gun approach. Applying directly to three secured loan lenders in the same week, hoping one says yes, puts three hard searches on your file and can turn the third lender's answer into a no because of the first two. The better route is to compare lenders first, on a soft search or on your own report, then apply to the one lender that fits. That is precisely what a broker is for, and it is why checking your options through one will not affect your credit score.

Two more things are worth saying. If you are consolidating, the debts you are clearing may themselves have created recent searches, and the broker should know about those before placing the case. And if you have been turned down recently, do not immediately apply elsewhere; find out why first. Our guide on what to do when a debt consolidation loan is declined sets out the steps.

What does Equiclear's check involve?

Equiclear does not run a credit search of any kind, soft or hard. When you check your options, you tell us the basics: roughly what your home is worth, what is left on your mortgage, how much you want to borrow and why, your income, and any credit problems such as defaults, CCJs or missed payments. Nothing in that step touches your credit file.

We are an introducer, not a lender or an adviser. What we do with your details is pass them to an FCA authorised broker who specialises in secured loans and remortgages for debt consolidation. That broker contacts you, talks through the two routes, and works out which lenders are likely to consider your case, so checking your options will not affect your credit score. A hard search only happens if you go ahead with a full application to a specific lender, and the broker will tell you before that point.

Two honest cautions before you start. First, any loan the broker arranges will be secured on your home, which may be repossessed if you do not keep up the repayments, so the question is never just whether you can get the loan but whether you can comfortably afford it. Second, if your debts already feel out of control, free and impartial advice from MoneyHelper, StepChange or Citizens Advice is the right first call. They can tell you whether consolidation is the sensible answer or whether a different route would serve you better.