Would this help improve Fico Score?

[sugardust6]

I have impeccable credit (770+) no lates low UTI.. but my boyfriend's is about 20 point off (mid score) to move into a better credit score to obtain a better rate for a mortgage. To give a glimpse of his report the only things he has working against him is some (recent) lates.. His balances have been paid down(he wasn’t in high debt to begin with and currently only owes just under  $400 in total) and will be paid in full this month.. He doesn’t have any charge-offs, judgements, liens etc.  Do you think it would help his score if I added him as an authorized user on 1 or 2 of my cards (I don’t plan on allowing him to physically use them… ) It’s just that my credit limits are extremely higher than his.. so I was wondering if it would help him and lower his UTI? Would they do a “hard” pull on his (or my)credit? He asked one of his credit card companies for a limit increase but they said they would have to pull his credit report so he said nevermind (as we are trying to get a mortgage and don’t want extra inquiries on the account) Or would it make no difference as he is just an authorized user to sign for transactions.. I hope I’m explaining this right.. I’m just trying to expedite the process and am still a little confused.. Thanks for any help!

[jbh]

Be careful, because adding a new account *might* affect his average age of accounts negatively. It all depends on the lengh of his accounts and the one you will add for him.

Worst case, you still qualify for a great rate and, if you do not add any inq's/new accounts in a year, you should both be sharing the same threshold one would think. (or at least the late would not hurt as much over another year). Therefore, maybe you can re-finance? See if that is at all possible or at least try Planet Feedback (.com)  and try to goodwill the company with the late payment.

[SCF]

jbh is right on with his suggestions, especially on the GW letter.  If your BF has a good payment record/relationship with the company, his chances of success are pretty high.  Just do a search here for goodwill or GW letter and you should be able to find some templates and more advice.

As for your cards lowering his util, that will only happen if he is carrying a balance.  If he has $0 CC debt, his util will be 0% no matter how high his CLs are.  If you can encourage him to let a small balance report on one card so his total util is between 1-9%, that should fine tune his score to its highest possible.

Good luck with your mortgage!