Credit Reports & Score When You Get Married
So what happens to your credit report/history and score when you get married? Worried that your new spouse’s bad credit profile will drag yours down? Well here are some quick facts that newlyweds should keep in mind going into their marriages.
It’s a common myth that credit reports and scores are combined when two people are married. This is untrue for the most part. Each individual retains their respective credit profiles as it follows the individual’s social security number. And since social security numbers don’t change, your credit history should have no impact. Your credit score should remain the same and will be a reflection of the credit accounts that you’ve held on your own in the past and moving on into the future.
The parts that will affect you will be those situations that you and your spouse decide to sign up for debt and financing together, jointly. This could include joint credit cards, loans, mortgages, etc. Anything that you do together, whether it be because of choice, or necessity (maybe you need both incomes combined to finance a debt), will then affect your credit. This is because when you file a joint account, you are agreeing to become responsible for that account and its payment. So even though you don’t use your joint credit card, your spouse’s activity on it could adversely affect you. Always be aware of what’s going on with your joint accounts. Your combined credit reports and scores could negatively affect your chances or your interest payments on a credit application.
It’s perfectly fine to have both personal credit accounts as well as joint accounts when you get married. You can keep building your personal credit profile by being financially responsible. This will help you down the road. Keep your personal credit accounts active while building your joint credit activities. And another thing, for the ladies out there… changing your name won’t erase your credit history. Though it’s often a tedious process, filling and submitting all the necessary paperwork, the change on your credit is simple. Report the name change to the credit bureaus and they’ll add your new name as an alias to your existing credit file.
