Co-Signing, how does it affect your score and the other person(s) score?

[UKTone]

My brother has bad credit in the 600s, I have good credit 730 fico discover, don't remember which buerau it's from. He wants to get a new car, and wants me to cosign, how does that work? Idt this site mentions anything about cosigning. Thanks for any advice.

[Remember0]

Reports as a joint loan for both people. The effect is the same as if each of you individually took out your own car loan (with 99% of finance companies).

Keep in mind if he's late or anything, your credit WILL take the hit as well as his. This is why it's so important that if you do this you make sure payments go in on time. I never recommend co-signing in most cases, but if you're going to do it, you'd better be sure it's paid every month ON TIME. So either have him pay you and you pay the finance company (yes he might be pissed you don't trust him, but you're doing him a favor by cosigning and explain you just really want to protect your credit, not a trust issue) or at least get the online login from him so you can go in and check every month that the loan has been paid. Or even call into the finance company monthly (say three or four days after the due date) to make sure payments have been made and have not bounced.

But if you cosign, please do something like this. A lot of people won't come and fess up at the first sign of trouble because they're embarrased/think they can fix it by themselves, and if your credit gets hit, by then it's too late!

And 600s isn;t that bad for the auto world to be honest. Any chance you can fill this out for him or convince him to fill it out...he might very well be able to get a good rate on his own:

Credit Score (and bureau(s)):

AAoA:

# of positive trade lines:

# of negative trade lines:

Pre-Tax Yearly Income:

Length of Employment:

Previous Loan Experience:

Rent/mortgage:

Aggregate minimum payments across all credit cards:

Monthly payment of any loans other than the rent/mort and credit cards discussed above:

Year of Car:

Miles:

Price of car to be purchased BEFORE down payment or trade is applied:

Requested loan term (XX Months):

Down payment amount:

Trade? If so, KBB Good Trade-In Value and Amount Owed on Current Loan:

[UKTone]

Oh man, I may not do it then. Thanks.

[Remember0]

Try to get him to come on these boards and see if he can fill out what I posted. With a 600+ FICO, I'd be shocked if he couldn't get a <10% rate by himself to be honest (unless he's buying a lot of car or has low income).

[ExplicitElicit]

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@Remember0 wrote:

Try to get him to come on these boards and see if he can fill out what I posted. With a 600+ FICO, I'd be shocked if he couldn't get a <10% rate by himself to be honest (unless he's buying a lot of car or has low income).

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+1, I've seen people in the 540's - 580's be approved at dealerships with 13%. He should be fine financing alone unless he's looking at something he cannot afford. If you don't trust him financially DON'T cosign for him, it will only lead to problems between the both of you down the road!