Does Marriage Change my Credit Score?

Provisor helps answer your questions about credit scores and marriage from our offices in East Troy, Watertown, Brookfield and Madison Wisconsin.

Marriage is one of the biggest changes you can make in your life, and it can bring with it many life alterations. However, is your credit score one of those? In this article, we will discuss whether or not it does and if so, how.

The short answer is that, no, marriage does not change your credit score. Your credit score will not be affected if your spouse has a bad credit score, or vice verse. However, that does not mean that one of you having a low credit score won’t affect things at all. When you start applying for loans together, the bad credit score will start to make an impact.

When you get married, your individual credit scores will remain unaffected. It is only when you start doing things like jointly applying for loans or credit card accounts that your individual credit scores start to matter to one another. This can manifest in the cost of joint loans or credit cards, as lenders will examine both credit scores when determining how much the interest rate will be. If one has a low credit score, then the interest can go up.

However, you do not need to apply jointly. As your credit reports aren’t linked automatically, you can choose which of your credit scores to use. In order to get the best interest rate, you can apply singularly using the better credit rate of the two.

ProVisor can answer your questions about credit scores and marriage. We have offices in East Troy, Madison, Brookfield and Watertown. We service Milwaukee, Waukesha, and all of the Midwest, working with first time home buyers, veterans, and anyone in needs of home loans or refinancing. To learn more, speak to one of our experts here at Provisor.