daughter's fiance's credit problems, how will it affect her?

[Anonymous]

My daughter is getting married in 2 months. Her fiance has credit problems due to medical bills, and I admire him greatlly for how hard he is working to dig himself out. But we don't know whether going straight into joint accounts and all will be a bad move for her. Should she maintain independence financially?

[JM-AM]

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@Anonymous wrote:

My daughter is getting married in 2 months. Her fiance has credit problems due to medical bills, and I admire him greatlly for how hard he is working to dig himself out. But we don't know whether going straight into joint accounts and all will be a bad move for her. Should she maintain independence financially?

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Many people get married and start joining their finances into joint accounts. While it isn't a bad thing to do it is still best to also keep individual accounts also. 

IMO she can have a joint account with her new husband, but she should also have her own separate individual accounts. This is the same for him also that he should also have his own individual accounts. They can both put in to the joint account the monthly expenses for the household bills and keep their personal bills being paid from their personal accounts.

Never put all your eggs in one basket. 

[RobertEG]

In my opinion, it depends upon whether you are talking about joint banking accounts, or application for joint credit.

Application for a joint credit account will permit an authorized pull of both of their credit reports.  If his score is much lower than hers, approval may be more difficult than if she had applied on her own.

My suggestion is to have her add him as an authorized user on one of her accounts, and use that AU to build his FICO score until he gets back on his own,firm credit grounds.

[Anonymous]

Thank you both, that is very helpful, and good suggestions! I'll pass on the information to them.

[marty56]

Me and DW seperate all our finances.  if something happens to me, she has her own credit history. 

[llecs]

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@marty56 wrote:

Me and DW seperate all our finances.  if something happens to me, she has her own credit history. 

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+1.