Key Takeaways. Marrying a person with a bad credit history won't affect your own credit record. You and your spouse will continue to have separate credit reports after you marry. However, any debts that you take on jointly will be reported on both your and your spouse's credit reports.
So credit histories and scores don't combine when you get married. And how your spouse uses their individual credit accounts can't impact your individual credit accounts. But if you have a shared account or you're an authorized user of your spouse's account, you could affect each other's scores.
Someone's credit history can only affect another's if they are financially linked, for example, with joint credit or a joint account. Also, if you have poor credit and are hoping changing your name will give you a clear slate, it won't. Your credit rating is only affected by your financial history and not your name.
Married couples don't have a joint FICO Score, they each have individual scores.
In many cases, your spouse's credit won't affect yours if you maintain separate bank and credit accounts. However, if you open credit accounts together, actions taken on those accounts (such as timely or missed payments) will become part of both of your credit histories and affect both scores.
Credit scores are calculated on a specific individual's credit history. If your spouse has a bad credit score, it will not affect your credit score. However, when you apply for loans together, like mortgages, lenders will look at both your scores. If one of you has a poor credit score, it counts against you both.
Yes, it's still possible to get a joint mortgage, even if one of you has bad credit. However, it'll be more difficult than if you both had perfect credit scores.
On a joint mortgage, all borrowers' credit scores matter. Lenders collect credit and financial information including credit history, current debt and income. Lenders determine what's called the "lower middle score" and usually look at each applicant's middle score.
What happens to your credit when you get married? In most cases, nothing happens to your credit score when you get married. Getting married does not affect your credit score, and you and your spouse will continue to maintain separate credit histories and credit reports.
However, with a 715 credit score, you should qualify for rates on-par with national averages. Also, even though your score qualifies you for a mortgage, it's important to know that the lower your score is, the stronger the rest of your qualifications are generally expected to be.
When someone dies with an unpaid debt, it's generally paid with the money or property left in the estate. If your spouse dies, you're generally not responsible for their debt, unless it's a shared debt, or you are responsible under state law.
A trio of economists parsed data from the Fed's consumer credit panel to identify the credit scores of couples in committed relationships. People tend to form committed relationships with people whose credit scores are in the same range, the study found. And couples with high credit scores tend to stay together longer.
Credit score and mortgages
The minimum credit score needed for most mortgages is typically around 620. However, government-backed mortgages like Federal Housing Administration (FHA) loans typically have lower credit requirements than conventional fixed-rate loans and adjustable rate mortgages (ARMs).
To maintain peace in the house, it may be best to skip the joint account and keep separate bank accounts. Pay bills in your name from your own account, and let your spouse manage his or her bills from another bank account – if he or she is late or defaults on a few bills, this won't affect your credit.
Sharing a credit card can help the partner with the lower credit score start to build their credit and raise their score. There are two options for sharing a card, Kuderna explains. You can open a joint card or have the spouse with the lower credit score become an authorized user on the other's credit card.
Even if you manage finances jointly, each partner should have several accounts on which they're the primary cardholder. After all, having your own accounts will allow you to build your credit history and snag welcome offers on new cards.
Your marital status is not part of your credit history. But it's wise to check your credit reports before and after a divorce. Bev O'Shea is a former NerdWallet authority on consumer credit, scams and identity theft.
Although ranges vary depending on the credit scoring model, generally credit scores from 580 to 669 are considered fair; 670 to 739 are considered good; 740 to 799 are considered very good; and 800 and up are considered excellent.
If you've ever wondered what the highest credit score that you can have is, it's 850. That's at the top end of the most common FICO® and VantageScore® credit scores. And these two companies provide some of the most popular credit-scoring models in America. But do you need a perfect credit score?
This means that if one person has a bad credit score, it could still be possible to get approved for the loan, as long as the other person has a good credit score. Of course, this is not always the case, and each lender will make their own decision about whether or not to approve a joint mortgage application.
Lenders use both partners' credit scores, but a common myth is that they take the scores and average them, which isn't the case. Instead, they do this: Each applicant has three credit scores (one from each major credit bureau), and the lender looks at all of them.
The average credit score in the US is a 714, based on FICO data provided by credit reporting company Experian. The average VantageScore is 701. Credit scores, which are like a grade for your borrowing history, fall in the range of 300 to 850. The higher your score, the better.
Key Takeaways. Marrying a person with a bad credit history won't affect your own credit record. You and your spouse will continue to have separate credit reports after you marry. However, any debts that you take on jointly will be reported on both your and your spouse's credit reports.
A poor credit score falls between 500 and 600, while a very poor score falls between 300 and 499. “In general, people with higher scores can get more credit at better rates,” VantageScore says. So you could have trouble getting approved for higher-limit, low-interest cards with a credit score of 600 or below.
You can improve your credit score by opening accounts that report to the credit bureaus, maintaining low balances, paying your bills on time and limiting how often you apply for new accounts.