Getting married - how will it affect both individuals' credit

[Anonymous]

Good evening,

I am getting married to my fiancee (female) in the next few weeks or months. We are both adults above 35, and employed in professional capacities. 

My to be wife has very good credit (I need to remind her to check her score) and purchased a home for about a 500k 30yr mortgage which she has been paying on time etc. for the last few years. She does not really have any other debt (no student loans, no vehicle loan, pays her credit card in full every month). 

I have gone through various challenges over the last decade requiring me to take time off work, change jobs etc to attend to ailing parents, thus I am still paying my student loan from my Masters degree. Apart from that I do not really have any other lines of credit or debt, e.g. no vehicle payment, no house payment etc. In fact I do not even carry a credit card as in my youth I was sloppy with managing credit cards. 

I presume my credit score is lower than that of my to be wife, maybe 100 points or so lower?

Anyways, so what happens after marriage? Does her credit score drop because of my supposed lower score?

I would hate to negatively impact her credit score...

Post marriage, we still plan to keep the home in her name, as it will eventually become a property she can will to our kids or anyone from her maiden family. 

We are both in the U.S.A, I presume this is largely a U.S specific forum.

Much appreciated,

Mr. Square

[Medic981]

Welcome to the myFICO forums!

His credit is his and her credit is hers. Any joint applications belong to both.

[pipeguy]

The biggest advantage of having TWO credit scores is that you can use the top one for your joint "needs". Case in point, after our joint crash and burn 10-12 years ago, my credit recovered faster than my wife's (I worked on hers after I corrected mine), today most of our debt load is on my reports, very little on my wife's. Note we are currently remodeling/refurbishing our home to the tune of $100k +/- although we are paying our balances down as we go alone, but are carrying higher than normal debt.  My scores are currently mids-700's, my wife's high 700's to low 800's.

In March of this year, we refinanced our home and used my wife's credit "first" with me as a co-borrower - the process and approval flew through. Several years ago when we purchased a new car we used my name first on the application because my scores were higher - it too was instantly approved at less than 2% apr. 

A couple can also use the better score to open better credit cards, then add the lessor score as an authorized user thus helping build the credit history for the lower score. In addition, should disaster hit and should one or the other fall on bad times or worse, there is no effect on the other as long as that credit profile stay pure. 

Keep your credit profiles separate, except in the case of required applications such as a mortgage, it will give you cover and advantages. 

[iced]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Good evening,

I am getting married to my fiancee (female) in the next few weeks or months. We are both adults above 35, and employed in professional capacities. 

My to be wife has very good credit (I need to remind her to check her score) and purchased a home for about a 500k 30yr mortgage which she has been paying on time etc. for the last few years. She does not really have any other debt (no student loans, no vehicle loan, pays her credit card in full every month). 

I have gone through various challenges over the last decade requiring me to take time off work, change jobs etc to attend to ailing parents, thus I am still paying my student loan from my Masters degree. Apart from that I do not really have any other lines of credit or debt, e.g. no vehicle payment, no house payment etc. In fact I do not even carry a credit card as in my youth I was sloppy with managing credit cards. 

I presume my credit score is lower than that of my to be wife, maybe 100 points or so lower?

Anyways, so what happens after marriage? Does her credit score drop because of my supposed lower score?

I would hate to negatively impact her credit score...

Post marriage, we still plan to keep the home in her name, as it will eventually become a property she can will to our kids or anyone from her maiden family. 

We are both in the U.S.A, I presume this is largely a U.S specific forum.

Much appreciated,

Mr. Square

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Marriage changes literally nothing on your credit report. You don't magically show up on her accounts or vice versa.

[Anonymous]

Your file is your file, her file is her file. Nothing merges when you marry, and I've been married twice so I know for sure. :-)

If you want to improve your score rapidly, your wife could add you as an authorized user on her oldest credit card. You don't even have to have an actual card or access her credit in any way. Just being an "authorized user" on an old account of hers, hopefully an account with a high limit and low utilization -  will get you the benefits of increasing your average account age and lowering your your card utilization, which will BOOST your score.

[Anonymous]

First of all Congrats and Welcome Aboard! I caught my fish a little over 15 years ago and loving it!...

Also Congrats on your post-grad MSD I'm guessing

"Anyways, so what happens after marriage? Does her credit score drop because of my supposed lower score?" my answer to this would be NOPE!

Do yourself a favor and sign up full pledge on here as a paying member so you can get a total picture as to where you stand credit wise if you feel me. You'd be surprised to find out what's on your CR.. I've long ignored my CR prior to rebuilding and found out I had 2 other names that wasn't me and other crapload of false info that I've cleared thus so far.

You both can strategize moving forward in terms of the nest adding you to the title and so forth and when you're in good shape CR wise you can refi with both of you on there of course if needed...

A happy wife is a happy life!

[Girlzilla88]

Thank you this is awesome!

[fancycreditdreams]

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@pipeguy wrote:

The biggest advantage of having TWO credit scores is that you can use the top one for your joint "needs". Case in point, after our joint crash and burn 10-12 years ago, my credit recovered faster than my wife's (I worked on hers after I corrected mine), today most of our debt load is on my reports, very little on my wife's. Note we are currently remodeling/refurbishing our home to the tune of $100k +/- although we are paying our balances down as we go alone, but are carrying higher than normal debt.  My scores are currently mids-700's, my wife's high 700's to low 800's.

In March of this year, we refinanced our home and used my wife's credit "first" with me as a co-borrower - the process and approval flew through. Several years ago when we purchased a new car we used my name first on the application because my scores were higher - it too was instantly approved at less than 2% apr. 

A couple can also use the better score to open better credit cards, then add the lessor score as an authorized user thus helping build the credit history for the lower score. In addition, should disaster hit and should one or the other fall on bad times or worse, there is no effect on the other as long as that credit profile stay pure. 

Keep your credit profiles separate, except in the case of required applications such as a mortgage, it will give you cover and advantages. 

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THAT IS SUCH GOOD ADVICE. I never thought of it like that!