Proper steps to take when changing name? Anyone ever lose credit history due to name change?

[MF13]

Hi everyone.

My significant other and I were wondering whether any special consideration needs to be made when updating the names on our credit cards (due to marriage). We have already made updates with the DMV and Social Security Administration, and we know that each credit card has their own process to update a name. Our concerns mostly surround whether this change could cause portions of our credit history to disappear (thus making it much harder to get a mortgage). I listed our concerns with more detail below. Thank you in advance for your help.

1. We hope to buy a house within the next year. Will updating the names on our credit cards mess anything up in regards to that? While we know that our SS#s were/are used to create our credit histories, we're worried that some of that history will get lost upon updating the names on our credit cards. We've read some horror stories on these forums that source from bad data management on the Big 3's part. Has this happened to anyone? To clarify, we're NOT changing the structure of any of our accounts (Ex: single account holder to joint account, etc) at this time. We are just updating names where necessary.

2. Are you supposed to contact the credit bureaus after you change your name? If so, where can we find the proper steps to do so for each bureau? We've read that others on this forum have had great difficulties changing their name with the bureaus (despite having all the proper paperwork). We're curious to know whether more of you have just let your credit report in your new name or whether you took the steps to change your name with the bureaus. If you changed your name with the bureaus, do you have any pointers (that differ from the proper steps asked about above)?

Thanks again for your help.

[takeshi74]

Contact the credit bureaus.  We did not do so immediately.  We updated while cleaning up her credit reports.  No problems with any of them.  They did require documentation but I can't recall exactly what each needed off the top of my head.

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@MF13 wrote:

We've read that others on this forum have had great difficulties changing their name with the bureaus (despite having all the proper paperwork). 

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The nature of any discussion forum means that posts will be from people with problems.  Those without problems rarely bother to post that everything is working or everything went smoothly.  Don't just assume that you'll have problems.

[MF13]

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@takeshi74 wrote:

Contact the credit bureaus.  We did not do so immediately.  We updated while cleaning up her credit reports.  No problems with any of them.  They did require documentation but I can't recall exactly what each needed off the top of my head.

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@MF13 wrote:

We've read that others on this forum have had great difficulties changing their name with the bureaus (despite having all the proper paperwork). 

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The nature of any discussion forum means that posts will be from people with problems.  Those without problems rarely bother to post that everything is working or everything went smoothly.  Don't just assume that you'll have problems.

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Thanks for your comments. We don't assume that we'll have problems, but when it comes to purchasing a home we err on the side of caution simply because any hiccup could result in more time and money spent.

In our original post, we were asking other forum members what they had found to be best practices (via their own experience or via information they had found on this forum or other reliable sites) so that we do the right thing the first time around. We searched around for an answer to our question before posting and came across some horror stories, but we know how to tell the difference between a problem that is very specific to an individual and a general trend. We did not come across a clear best practice on what to do in this situation (hence our original post).

It would be wonderful if myFICO had employees on these forums to point forum members to general (but hard fact / standardized) answers. Maybe they do, and we're just not aware?

[09Lexie]

Welcome to the forum! In my experience once my name was changed with the issuing creditor it populated to my CRs. My name is hyphenated so under the personal information section, there is my long name, maiden and just my DHs last name. I have been married for 30 years.

My DD was married 2 years ago but recently changed her name ( she decided to drop her maiden name completely)- after notifying SSA she tackled her cc's. it took 2-3 mos but they all show her new name along with her former name.

She did not have to provide any information to the CRAs but to the cc's she used a form similar to this:

http://www.bankrate.com/brm/news/forms/credit-cards-name-change.pdf