Divorce and Your Credit

Pending Divorce??

Some Practical Advice

While we are not Attorneys, nor do we offer Legal Advice, CCFG offers the following guidance for those contemplating Divorce.

Look at your Credit Reports from each of the Three Bureaus, the Bureaus do not share information, so you need to review all three. You can get them free at annualcreditreport.com.

You are looking for any Joint or Shared accounts with your spouse, you may have forgotten a few over the years. Look for both open and closed accounts.

In the Divorce process, you need to communicate these accounts to your Attorney to make sure that there are provisions made for these items. If your Spouse gets the House, you want to make sure that they get you off the Mortgage as soon as possible. If your spouse gets the car, and it is financed in your name only, you want to make sure the financing is changed over to prevent your Credit Score from being damaged in the future, if whoever gets the house cannot mae the payments.

If there are old bills or collections from during the Marriage, you want to have an order specifying the responsibility shares of both you and your spouse. If an old collection goes to Court, and a Judgment is rendered years from now, you may find a Court Order showing that you are liable for half or none of the bill quite handy.

Divorce ..
OK, so it was too late for our advice!

A Divorce is usually a Credit Disaster. The process takes forever, and many times the Credit details are forgotten.
Any accounts that were held jointly can be a real problem. Let's say you were both on a car loan. Spouse 1 gets the car, Spouse 2 is responsible for the loan on it. Spouse 1 decides that there is no longer a need for insurance. Then it's lost, stolen, or totaled. Who is on the hook for the debt? Spouse 2 gets the debt.

Credit Cards can be jointly held, or one Spouse can be an Authorized User. Authorized Users cannot hurt the credit of the main card holder, they can just run up the debt until their card is canceled. Jointly held debt means either or both individuals can be held liable for the debt.

Lets demonstrate with Jack and Jill Hill, recently divorced.
They are about halfway through a 30 year mortgage, Jill gets the house. She is court ordered to refinance it or sell it within 2 years, to remove Jack from the debt. Jill is tired of mowing the lawn and fixing the house, so she plans to rent after she moves into an apartment. The late payments start, wrecking Jack's credit. After 2 years, she has managed to run up 18 60 day late payments on a mortgage. Jacks recourse is to take her to court for the damages, and call CCFG to clear up the mess. Real Event, not real names. You can change things around if you wish, lets say Jack got the house, and Jill was on the note. Jill paid all the bills, and Jack got lazy and forgot to pay the mortgage a few times. Let's say the house went into foreclosure. Jill was still on the mortgage. They both get a foreclosure on their records, and the late payments that preceded it. Jill has legal recourse against Jack, and needs to clear up her credit files.

If your ex-spouse files Bankruptcy, be ready to consult a attorney to do the same for you. Frequently, those old joint accounts will soon be knocking at your door to collect those joint debts from you. It happens a lot.