I live in North Carolina. If I were to marry a person that is in a lot of debt, would I inherit any of the debt? The debt is incurred before we get married. Right now we live together and I want to marry her but I'm worried.
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I live in North Carolina. If I were to marry a person that is in a lot of debt, would I inherit any of the debt? The debt is incurred before we get married. Right now we live together and I want to marry her but I'm worried.
Nope, unless you where a co-signor.
So as long as I'm not a co-signer with this person, I'll be fine? I don't want to hurt my credit rating/score.
Quote:
Originally Posted by omega_red_08
Yes, you would be fine BUT keep in mind that that person's credit report comes into play if you ever apply for any sort of joint credit.
You mentioned "inheriting" debt. I think you meant being held liable for it.Quote:
Originally Posted by omega_red_08
The way it works in most states, like mine, is that the debt you bring into a marriage remains your debt and is assigned to you in a divorce. The problem can be that sometimes there's a mixing of pre-marital with marital debt (an example being your credit card that had $2,000 on it when you married but now has $5,000). If the creditor knows of the marriage, you might be sued over the debt if it goes unpaid because the creditor doesn't know which portion of the debt is a joint obligation (i.e. the portion incurred during the marriage) and that which is the sole liability (the $2,000 premarital poriton) of the party who has the credit card. Now, even though that can be a problem my experience has been that creditors usually only look to the person whose name is on the account in attempting to collect. They can be clever if they know of a marriage (which they often don't) and try to collect from both parties if they think there were marital charges made, but normally creditors aren't that sophisticated.
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