Joint CC

[Anonymous]

I was going to try this and wanted some advise....

My girlfriend is going to close two of her credit cards (she has upward of 10 or so) and I was hoping that there is something to do so that I can basically transfer her history to me. Can we make this a JOINT account and then in 3-4 months down the line, remove her from the card? Should I wait 6 months? Is this even possible. I want to do this because of her excellent payment history, she has had most of her cards for at least 5 years and not once been late.

Secondly, I have been rebuilding/reestablishing my credit and have moved from 500's to 650's (EQ, TU) but i still have old collections on my credit report. If I applied for the any of these cards (Citi and Chase) I would get denied. would i still be denied being a JOINT on the account if she has excellent credit? Or would they just lower the CR?  

[Anonymous]

1.  Your girlfriend should consider not closing her oldest accounts, as part of the closures.  Long term they will be the most helpful to her.

2.  It is doubtful that you would be able to be added as JOINT to an existing account when not married.

3.  If you did manage to get yourself added as JOINT, most CCC's do not allow a joint holder to be dropped (BoA as one exception).

4.  If a CCC does allow the joint holder to be removed, the remaining holder must be credit worthy of the account, if not then the account would be closed.  And Bank of America is the only CCC that I am aware that allows the addition of a joint then removal later to "gift" the account and the person who remains must be credit worthy at that time.

5.  Have her add us an AU for some benefits in age of accounts, balances and utilization.

6.  It is usually best NOT to mingle boyfriend/girlfriend credit.  The relationship can change and the credit then creates problems.  Therefore, I don't recommend opening new joint accounts.  If you ever broke up, the accounts would end up closed, and if one or the other mismanaged the accounts, it adversely affects both on CR.

7.  Generally the primary applicant is the one whose credit is most important.  The joint applicant income may be used as a basis of repayment, but their credit glitches will not be as important as they would if they applied on their own.  However, some CCC's will deny credit if the joint applicant has adverse credit or certain past derogatories such as collections, charge offs and bankruptcy.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the info.

I wouldn't consider starting joint accounts with her. The only reason I was considering this situation is because in a short time i thought I would basically get a "gift" of credit. But if that is not an option, I can just through that idea out the window.

Also, why would you recommend to keep her cards open. Here is a basic overview of her credit

3-4 store cards

8-9 credit cards

no mortgate and no car payment.

She has about 50-60k in total CL and only about 2.5K in balances. This is because she took a trip and wanted to get rewards, so this will be paid off shortly.

AAoA is between 5-6 years and the ones she is considering of closing are the two newer cards with lower CL(about $3K)

[Anonymous]

Unless the cards have an Annual Fee, then there is no benefits to closing.  This will not help her age of accounts, but it will potentially hurt her utilization percentages.

However, if she is more comfortable with less available credit, she should not close her oldest accounts.  Those accounts which are her oldest she will want to keep the first and second accounts strictly for their age.

Much of credit is based upon length of history.  Once an account is closed, its history will be purged from her CR in 10 years, while open accounts remain indefinitely.

ALSO:  If she added you as an authorized user, there would be certain benefits to you (especially if these were one of her older accounts and low balances).  You can be removed at any time, say when you have obtained your own/rebuilt without issue.

[Anonymous]

Once again, thanks for all the info.

[Creditaddict]

many banks you can call up and get forms sent out to ADD Joint account.

Then at some point down the road you can also call up and ask for joint account to be removed and they will send a form again, the person wanting to keep the account would have to qualify for the account on there own and then the other would be removed, if they did not qualify account would just remain joint and you would get a letter back.

Chase adds joint accounts VERY easily with no credit check, but removing joint with Chase is a little harder.

Nordstrom is easy to add and remove joint accounts.

Macy's is easy for joint, have not tried removing joint though 

[Anonymous]

When it comes to removing someone on original account.

1) Do i get entire history the person has for that card?

2) When removing someone from the account. Does the person remaining on the card need to meet the same requirements of someone applying for a new card? The reason I ask is because right now I have three collections from 03-04. This is probably what is keeping me from getting a card with them. I was hoping that if I get in good with them, they would allow me to keep the card, even if its with a lower CL.

[haulingthescoreup]

You have to realize that as far as we can tell, Bank of America is the ONLY bank that allows a joint user to come off. With them, you do keep the history --the original opening date.

With other joint accounts --CC's, auto loans, mortgages, you name it --the only way for one joint holder to come off is to close the account, losing all the history (although it will report for ten years.) I recommend against joint CC's even for married couples, not only because of the possiblity of divorce, but because if one spouse declares BK due to uninsured medical disaster, etc, the other spouse's credit is untouched and can carry the family through the lean years.

There are other ways to get in with a bank. Going joint with an unrelated party is an invitation to disaster.

[Creditaddict]

Unless it has been changed in last year or so.

Chase allows you to remove joint but it's like applying for a new card... you must qualify to take over

Nordstrom also removes joint and they use to do it with no credit check, they may make you qualify now

Citi use to also remove joints with no checks but they stopped doing it, now you have to close accounts you want joint removed, I think they started doing that because of how many bad accounts they ended up with after joints were removed