You worked hard to ensure that your credit score was where you wanted it. Now, you are facing the possibility of divorce. This means that you need to be extra careful about how you handle the divorce, property division and financial obligations now because there is a chance that the divorce and your ex will ruin your credit score.
One thing that you must remember when you are going through a divorce is that your creditors aren’t bound by the terms of your divorce settlement. If your name is on an account, you can still be held responsible for the money owed even if your ex was told to pay the account during the divorce.
If you are concerned with how your ex’s payments might impact your credit score, you do have options for protecting yourself. One of these is to have all joint accounts closed and transferred to individual accounts. This means that if your ex doesn’t make payments on the individual account, it will only impact his or her credit history because you aren’t on that individual account.
Another option that you have is to take care of the payments on all the accounts. This isn’t something that many people would take on, but it might be preferable to having to take continuous hits to your credit score if your ex is irresponsible with money.
You might also put a credit freeze on your account. This would prevent anyone from being able to open new accounts in your name. This isn’t to say that your ex would do this, but it takes away the chance. All of this is just part of protecting yourself during the divorce.
Source: The Street, “How to Keep an Ex From Ruining Your Credit Score,” Brian O’Connell, Jan. 12, 2018
