Does My Debt Affect My Partner if We Marry?

A marriage combines two lives into one. While this applies emotionally and spiritually, it affects finances as well. One person's debt can eventually creep into the spouse's financial life and begin to affect that spouse directly. Couples should have a plan for dealing with debt if one person has significantly more liabilities than the other.

Separate Debts

Any debt a person brings into a marriage is that person's own debt and is not the legal responsibility of the spouse unless she signs for and assumes legal responsibility for it. If the couple take on debt during the marriage together and both sign as responsible parties for the debt, the debt affects both parties equally. Paying the debts of one person in a marriage may have a serious affect on the family budget, regardless of who is responsible.

Separate Assets

Each married person owns the property they bring into the marriage, and their spouse does not have any claim to it. In a community property state, any property acquired during the marriage belongs to both partners. Even in common-law states, property can be jointly owned between the two spouses. Jointly owned property is a target for collections activity, such as liens and seizures by creditors, even if only one owner has the debt.

Joint Accounts

Joint bank accounts are also at risk if one person in a marriage has debt that is getting out of hand. A creditor can get an order from a judge to force a bank to turn over money held in a debtor's account to satisfy a judgment. This is true if it is an individual account and if it is a joint account. All of the money is at risk in the account regardless of who earned or deposited the funds.

Credit Scores

The FICO credit score, as well as other credit scores, are individual scores and do not take into account a spouse's credit rating. Still, a spouse's bad credit can have an effect on the other spouse. For example, if a married couple is purchasing a home, and they apply jointly for a mortgage, the mortgage company will pull credit reports from each of them. The lowest score will determine if the couple qualifies. One spouse's credit may be so bad that the couple decides to leave that person off the application. The income of that spouse is also left off the application, and this will reduce the size of the mortgage the couple can qualify for.