If you are married, separated, or divorced, and most of the credit you obtained is in your spouses or ex-spouses name only, you should start to get credit in your name, too.
Getting credit in your own name is also an excellent strategy for repairing your credit if:
a) All or most of your financial problems can be attributed to your spouse, or
b) you and your spouse have gone through financial difficulties together, but most credit was in your spouses name only.
In order to understand how this works, you first must learn about which of your spouses accounts can appear on your report. Here are the rules:
Consumer Handbook to Credit Protection Laws - HSH Associates Library of ::
Your own credit means a separate account or loan in your own name -- not a joint when they married, and married women have had accounts closed after a divorce.
http://library.hsh.com/?row_id=1228HOME |
Credit bureaus must include information about your spouses account on your credit report in two situations: (a) you and your spouse have a joint account (that is, you both can use it), or (b) you are obligated (responsible for paying) on an account belonging to your spouse, even if your spouse is the primary signer on the account.
Credit bureaus cannot include information about your spouses account on your credit
report if the account is not joint and you are not responsible for paying the account.
This is usually good news if you are worried that your spouses negative credit history may reflect badly on you - delinquent accounts in your spouses name only should not appear on your credit report. However, if you are now divorced or separated and had relied primarily on your spouse to obtain credit, so that most loans and credit cards were in your spouses name only, you wont have a lengthy history of good credit in your report. You now need to start building good credit in your own name. If you are still married, you can start by making sure that all joint accounts and accounts that you are obligated to pay appear on your credit report, too.
APPLYING FOR CREDIT::
the debt, try again to get credit on your own. department store in your old hometown for the name of the. agency it reports to.
http://www.in.gov/dfi/education/pdfs/apcredit.pdfHOME |
Managing Your Finances During Divorce::
3. BuIld your CredIt sCore. If you have yet to establish credit in your own name, begin building a after you have made faithful payments on a credit card,
http://www.quickenloans.com/common/pdf/divorce-and-finances.pdfHOME |
Lastly, ask creditors to consider your spouses credit history. Although a credit bureau cannot include information about your spouses positive credit accounts on your credit report (unless the account meets one of the two criteria listed above), if you are applying for a loan, credit card, or other type of credit, you can always ask the creditor to consider any of your spouses accounts that reflect on your creditworthiness, too. For example, if you and your spouse make payments on your spouses account with joint checks, bring this to the creditors attention. A creditor doesnt have to consider this information, but it may.
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How to Build Credit With Your Own Name After Divorce