My husband only shows student loans on his EQ report. Other than that, the only other tradelines are 3 unpaid utility collections (that I'll start working on next month) Anyway, we would like to buy a house in the next 18 months--should I add him as an Authorized user on my CC's, to help him establish credit? Or are the student loans enough? How will adding him effect my credit scores (they are pretty dismal themselves!)??? He does have a car payment, but it doesn't show up on equifax (of course, the one thing that has been current for the past couple of years!!) Thank you!
Tracy, When adding your husband to your account(s), whatever his credit history may be will not affect you at all, what will happen is your credit history on the particular account you add him onto, will affect his credit history. I strongly advise you not to add him to any of your accounts that even have 1-30 day late. Only add him to accounts that show up in the "positive" section of your credit report. As far as the student loans being enough history for him, I cannot give you a direct answer, you may want to e-mail fla_tan, a member of the board who has helped several other members with mortgage issues, however,what I can offer is, I would suggest he try to add other "types" of credit to his reports, for example: a bank card, like Capital One, or one with your local bank/CU, a retail card, a gas card, one or more along those lines, and since you're not looking to get a mortgage for at least a year, maybe more, opening too many new accounts won't be a problem if you start soon. As far as his car payment goes, is it reporting to EX and TU? If so, ask the car note company if they can report to EQ as well. Sometimes a creditor will only subscribe to 1 or 2 CRA's, and that may be the reason why it's not reporting to EQ, however it worth a shot to ask.
thank you. I did add him as a secondary user to my cap one card last night. I've had it for 2 years, w/ no lates. I had him apply for a card last week too--it was preapproved, but I'd still be very surprised if he gets it. If not, I'll add him to my other two cards also. I don't want us to get too many cards, because we end up using them. They get payed on time, but I want to get rid of the balances, not get more. I have 3 total, so I'll just put his name on all of them. I thought about calling and asking the car people to report to EQ, but then I wondered if the high balance on the car would have an adverse affect on our reports. I'll wait til the fall--then we are going to meet w/ a mortgage broker (we are waiting to get some unpaid collections taken care of first) If we need to, we can ask them about the car then. Thank you for the advice! Tracy
