Can A Divorce Hurt My Credit Report?
Getting a divorce will not directly affect your credit score. Your credit report will not actually say that creditors should stay away from you because you’re divorced. In fact, your credit rating would still depend on your credit worthiness and being able to pay your debt on time.
However, there’s a catch. Divorce can hurt your credit report if you have debts that were incurred while you and your ex-husband were still together. If any of these debts goes unpaid, then you will have a problem. Even if the courts supposedly assigned all the debts to your husband, technically you and your husband are jointly bound to that debt. Whatever debt he fails to pay, you are still partly responsible for that since you and your husband are jointly bound to the transactions you did before you got divorced.
If a debt goes unpaid, creditors would likely call you up seeking payment. They may also assign the collection to collection agencies but still they would contact you for payment. What you can do then is to pay up if you don’t want to sacrifice your credit rating. Or, you may try asking your ex-husband to pay the loan so as not to adversely affect both of your credit scores. You may also tell the collectors that the debts were assigned to your ex. This will not stop them from asking what both of you owe your creditors. But this may help you in case you go to court later on.
There is something you can do avoid this situation. You and your husband should agree to roll or convert your debts into your personal accounts so that all your joint debts will be dissolved. This way whatever debt goes unpaid will not be blamed on you. You can go on maintaining a good credit score and you will be sure that whatever happens to your credit report will be your doing and it will not be affected by any behavior of your ex husband.
In case you haven’t done this right after your divorce, you can still ask your creditors if they would be willing to convert your debts to your ex’s personal account since the courts have already assigned the debts to him. To ease the pressure from him also, you can both ask the bank if they can collect interest payments only for a few months and then revert back to principal plus interest payments after to give him time to recover from his current personal financial crisis. If they agree, your own personal credit report will be saved.
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