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Divorce and your credit
Divorce and your credit
Minimize credit score impacts of divorce by monitoring your report.
How does divorce affect credit score?
Divorce may result in financial changes with impacts to your savings, income and expenses. Divorce may also cause financial problems, which may potentially affect your credit score.
While a divorce won’t be reported on a credit report, related factors that may be impacted by a divorce may be reported. These can include things like payments on joint accounts that you may remain responsible for, or money borrowed to settle divorce expenses. Understanding your credit obligations may help you try to minimize negative impacts on your score.
understand financial change
How do I fix my credit score after divorce?
It may be possible to improve your credit score if it takes a temporary dip after divorce. It can be a good idea to evaluate your credit report to understand where you stand and to use personalized tips from CreditWise to make steady progress toward your future financial goals.
How to protect your credit score during divorce
Your credit score is worth protecting. Using CreditWise can help you keep track as you take vital steps to secure your credit profile and minimize potential credit score impacts from a divorce.
CreditWise can help you keep track during a divorce while:
Closing joint accounts
Monitoring credit utilization
Securing passwords
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
What can cause your credit score to drop when you get divorced?
Marital status is not reported on your credit report. However, changes to your finances may lead to scenarios that can impact your credit. For example, your household income could decrease, which could cause a higher debt-to-income ratio and impact your credit utilization rate. Late or missed payments or large purchases on joint accounts may also hurt your credit score.
Does alimony show up on a credit report?
Receiving alimony or making timely alimony payments most likely will not show up on a credit report. However, missed or late alimony payments may be reported on your credit report.
Will my credit score drop after a divorce?
Your credit score won’t necessarily drop after a divorce. If finances need to be split and you are joint account holders, mismanagement of those accounts is one scenario that may affect your credit score.
How do I get my ex-spouse off my credit report?
Work with your lenders to understand your options regarding shared accounts. Whether or not you are the primary account holder, you may have options to separate yourself or your ex-spouse from jointly managed accounts.
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