It’s common for credit scores to be damaged during a divorce for a number of reasons. First, there are now two households to support on what is probably the same amount of income, which can make it difficult to keep bills paid on time. Also, it may be unclear which spouse is liable for which debts. Finally, one spouse may have not had a chance during the marriage to establish credit in his or her own name.
Protecting your credit during a divorce is critical. It’s likely you will need to use your credit later to purchase a house, a vehicle, or another major purchase. In order to protect your credit during the divorce, you should make a list of debts that are in your name and make sure those payments are current, even if your spouse is ordered to pay them. If your divorce is an ugly one, and you suspect your spouse could try to take out debts in your name, you should consider checking your credit report, as well as signing up with a credit monitoring service.
After your divorce, if you need to rebuild your credit, the first thing to do is to find out where you stand. Get a report from the three credit bureaus, review the information, and make sure none of your ex’s information is on there. If you do find errors, contact the credit bureaus and ask them to fix the errors. Finally, start out slowly and make your payments on time, which will help establish your credit worthiness.