if your credit is bad and you marry someone with good credit are they held accountable for this?

if you have good credit and marry someone with bad credit does this bad credit reflect on your credit after you marry them

Public Comments

1. Yes, when you need to qualify for things that require both your incomes, the bad credit will be factored in with the good credit.
2. It depends on how you approach it. After marriage you will still have individual credit report...always will, they are not merged or anything. If you apply for individual credit it will only affect the person applying. However, if you intend to jointly purchase a home, car, personal loan then the person with the lower score will cause the interest rates payable to go up or you'll need more down payment. Just work on getting your score cleaned up before you do that. 1. Order your credit reports from the 3 bureaus equifax.com, experian.com and transunion.com If you're ordering for the first time, get your score (for a fee) from Equifax as their scoring matters most. 2. Make copies of your report and put the originals in a binder. On the photocopied reports use a highlighter and check for any incorrect, outdate, false, etc...info 3. Download a dispute letter(s) from the credit bureaus website and list anything that is wrong. Mail them to their office(s). They have 30 days to reply. 4. If they will not remove something that is not yours or too old (> 7 years) as them for a debt validation. This may take an additional 30 days. 5. Once the 'baddies' come off, take care not to let any of your other accounts fall into that predicament. 6. If you haven't already make sure your existing accounts are current and paid on time ALWAYS. 7. Get a secured credit card with Capital One, Orchard Bank or your local bank for like $500-1000 or more if you can and use it sparingly. Charge like $50 on the card each month and pay it in FULL and on TIME. Make sure you do this for a minimum of 6 months so that you estabish a positive repayment history. 8. Don't try and just let collections fall of as they may never. You may get sued before that...that's where you suddenly get a summons to appear in court and a judgment for collection against you. For collection items...pay them but get a (pay for delete) from the collection agency only in WRITING...they'll delete it after you pay and it will help your credit score.
3. OK... Couple of things about this... If you marry someone with better credit than you, their credit is not impacted unless you use their accounts recklessly, or irresponsibly. The credit files are separate, and based on social security numbers. If you have joint accounts, you are both at the mercy of the other... Especially on revolving credit card accounts... In making a major purchase (house/car) where both incomes are needed to qualify, they do consider both credit files, but the emphasis is always on the primary "breadwinner's" credit. If it's strong enough, the co-borrower's won't matter much. If you need to have your credit evaluated, and possibly worked on by a professional, I would suggest these guys... http://www.omegacreditrepair.com If you need to establish credit, either jointly or independently, I would suggest a review of these two sites for a ton of available options... http://www.bestcredityet.com http://www.creditgecko.com I hope this helps!