Many people count on having good credit to be able to enjoy the finer things in life. When you go through a divorce, you might not realize that your credit is one of the things that might be impacted. If you are facing the prospect of a divorce or are in the midst of one, you should think about how you can try to prevent negative hits to your credit report.
One of the ways that your divorce might impact your credit is if your ex is assigned some of the joint debt and doesn’t pay as required. Because these accounts are joint accounts, your ex not paying will reflect on your credit report.
In order to try to prevent your credit report from taking a hit because of what your ex does, you need to try to get the accounts that your ex is responsible for transferred into an individual account that only impacts his or her credit report. You should do the same thing for the accounts that you are responsible for.
Your income is another point that might impact your credit score. You can’t count on your ex’s income to keep your debt-to-income ratio within an acceptable range. Instead, you will have to learn how to manage this on your own.
As you go through the property division process, you should remember that creditors don’t have to abide by the terms of the debt division. You must take steps that can help you to keep your credit score where you need it to be even if your ex doesn’t want to pay the bills he or she is supposed to pay.
Source: FindLaw, “Credit and Divorce,” accessed April 06, 2017
