I was marrie recently and my wife has "less than perfect credit". Would telling the CRAs I'm married hurt my score (fico 694-721)? I saw where they wanted her social and all that stuff if I did list her. Does anyone have a clue? I haven't been able to find a lot of posts about this. Thanx for the responses.
I don't know why you'd want to "merge" files. I've never even heard of this. You don't want her bad credit on your report. Just saying that you're married shouldn't do that. The CRAs don't show marital status. If you have good credit and want to help her, make her an authorized user on your cards. That way, your cards will report on her report and help her score. That is, if the card reports AUs, as many do. You may also want to employ the techniques you'll learn by reading, reading, reading this board to clean up her credit. Start with the threads at the top of the board. Read them several times and try to digest everything. Do searches to get more information on specific issues, and then when you come up with specific questions, ask us for help.
unless you plan to open accounts jointly (bad idea for you) i'd strongly suggest keeping your credit separate until necessary (IE HOUSE). Otherwise the other persons low score will factor into any joint app and will disqualify you for best rates. Besides having separate credit, can be good. Say if you lose an income and need to tank one persons credit to keep a roof on your head for your FAMILY, its better to screw one person's credit for 7-10 years than both persons. I strongly suggest you also keep a good bit of limit cards with credit protector in case of job loss on both side of the fences. doesn't look like the economy is getting better. You can put your good credit to him (AU) to help his scores heal faster, but that also can backfire if you ever pay late etc. the credit system isnt fast, isn't fair, isn't smart, and will screw you faster than you can screw them back. sad but true.
