@Anonymous wrote:
@CreditDunce wrote:FICO uses some algorithms to weed out AU accounts for non-related people. For your spouse, FICO most likely use the AU accounts. It might take a while for the accounts to report. When shopping for a mortgage, ask if they allow AU accounts. Some mortgage companies do not allow AU accounts. But you shouldn't have a problem finding lenders who do allow them.
As a side note, please make sure you are monitoring his EX-98, EQ-04 and TU-04 scores. The mortgage company will use the middle of those three scores to underwrite the loan. I am not using the current FICO names. You can find the current names in the sticky:
Wow - I never thought about the mortgage companies not allowing the AU accounts......don't a lot of spouses have AU accounts or joint accounts??.....I know that back when I was married the first time around (over 13 years ago) we had several cards that were AU and had no issues buying either the houses we had. Heck that is the only reason I survived my divorce, was that the cards were in my name, we took my ex off after he paid them off (per decree because he got the house) and I still had the cards.......
It's becoming more and more rare that mortgage companies won't use an AU; heck several now will use a single AU on a person to qualify for a mortgage, and that's a pretty substantial change both from the AU perspective and the number of tradelines one too.
To expand on Credit Dunce's answer: FICO 8 in particular has some anti-abuse AU flags in it so it may or may not count there; however, if we're talking mortgage in the US, 99.9+% of those are underwritten on a mix of 04 and 98 scores, and those absolutely will count the AU for scoring purposes.
