Credit Scores for Married Couples - Does Anything Change?

Reader Question: If my credit is great and I marry a person with very bad credit, how will that effect our credit as a couple?

For richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, and with good credit or bad. :-)

When you marry somebody, your credit scores are still separate. They do not merge in any way, shape or form. You share everything else in marriage -- just not your credit score.

Of course, if you apply for some kind of financing as a couple (like a mortgage loan), the lender will review both of your credit scores. But they'll also look at your combined income, if applicable, so it often becomes a tradeoff.

I know a lot of married couples in a similar situation. One person will have excellent credit and the other spouse will have bad credit. But they want to use their combined incomes in order to qualify for a certain loan amount. But if both names will be on the mortgage loan (and both incomes will be considered), then you can bet that both credit scores will be reviewed as well.

Here's a related Q&A session you might want to peruse:

Spouse Has Bad Credit - Can We Get a Mortgage?
This is an expansion of the point I made above, regarding mortgage applications. This person took your question a step farther by asking how the credit score "mismatch" will affect them when applying for a mortgage loan.

Hope that helps. Good luck to you in 2009.