If you are considering a divorce, you may want to evaluate how this action will affect your credit. You will want to take a close look at your mortgage, equity lines of credit, joint credit cards, and any other credit that you and your spouse may have and determine what to do with these accounts when you split.
When splitting, you will both be required to pay for any debts on joint accounts. Joint accounts can be anything from a mortgage to a credit card account that is both of your names. In divorce it is wisest to cancel all joint accounts so that a spouse cannot run up the balance and leave you with costs that you may be responsible to pay. Unfortunately a joint account mortgage cannot be canceled, and you and your ex-spouse will probably have to divide these costs. By cancelling other joint accounts you can differentiate which accounts you owe the majority balance on and which your spouse should pay off.
When it comes to individual accounts, you will want to make sure that they are held in your name only. Sometimes people will set up individual accounts but then share debit cards on the account so that others can use it. Once you have started a divorce, you will want to eliminate all other users on your account to make sure that the will not rack up debt.
Marital debt is any debt that you have accumulated in marriage, and normally it will be subject to equitable distribution. These joint debts can be divided evenly or unevenly depending on the circumstances. You can talk to a San Fernando divorce attorney today to get more information on credit card accounts and how you should carefully divide all expenses in a fair and appropriate way.
