What happens when Good credit marries bad credit?

[Anonymous]

Hi all,

Question me and my boyfriend are living together and we've talked about the marriage and buying a place together.  Currently we are living in the townhome he bought and he pays the morgtage and most of the bills.  He has great credit like 770 or 80's Besides the mortgage he has no car loans and one credit card wich he keeps only a small balance on under $500.00 Then you have me my credit score is in the upper 500's I have student loans that are deffered in the the 70k range I had a bk almost 10 years ago and some other medical debt.  I'm wondering what would happen to us if we got married and tried to buy a house together.  I am working on my debt and I have managed to start paying of previous debt within the las several monhs so how does my bad debt effect his good debt when we go tp purchase something togehter?

Thanks for the help

[llecs]

If you go to buy a home jointly, the mortgage lender will pull all three FICO scores for both of you and choose the lower of the two middle scores between the both of you. So, if he has 700-760-800 and you have 600-620-670, the lender will focus on yours at 620. Of course the lender will look at all of your reports, but if basing a decision on a score, there would be a large rate difference between 620 and 760.