One of our readers, Marcia, sent us this question:

My question is: if my husband open a credit card and got me a credit card and that account how would that affect my credit score if I want to take my name off the account. I don’t want the credit card.

Thanks for your question Marcia!

The first thing you need to know is whether or not your husband opened this account up with you as a joint account holder, or an authorized user.

Here’s the difference:

If you are a joint account holder:

If your husband set up the credit account with you as a joint account holder, then that means that you and he (jointly) are responsible for any money that either of you charges to the account.

Also, holding a “joint” account means that this credit account will be treated like any other credit account you might have open.



If you are an authorized user on his credit account:

If you husband set up the account with you as an authorized user, then it means that he, and only he, is liable for any charges that are made to the account.

As far as your credit report goes, this account will still show up, but it will be given slightly less weight than a normal account.




What does that mean to your credit score?

Well, if you are a joint account holder, it means that your credit score will have dropped slightly because the credit card company pulled your score as well as his when he opened the account.

If you are an authorized user, then your credit score should not have dropped at all when he opened the account. Since he is the one fully responsible for the debt, the bank that issued the credit card would not normally pull your credit report too.

What happens if you close the account?

Closing the account will hurt your credit score, period. If you have good credit to begin with, then you can go ahead and close it out. Your credit will take a hit, but not a big one. If you regularly have poor credit though, you should probably leave the account open. Open credit accounts do a couple of positive things for you.

1. If you (and your husband) keep a low limit, and make payments on time, then your score will go up, and continue to go up.
2. This new account will increase the total amount you are able to borrow. If you were carrying high balances on other credit cards, then having this new, open line with nothing charged on it would help you because it would reduce your overall debt to credit ratio. (The amount you can borrow, vs the amount you have already borrowed.

Now, let’s get into a few of the other specifics that you will need if you close this account.

If you are a joint account holder, you are probably going to have to close the account completely to get your name off of it. Your husband will then have to apply for a different account on his own.

If you are an authorized user, then all you have to do is call the credit card comapny and request to be removed from the account.

*Editor’s Opinion: If your husband does not have an excellent history of credit management (pays his bills on time, always, and keeps his revolving debt low) then I would close out the account regardless.

If he is making late payments, and going close to the limit, or over the limit on his cards, then you do not want that negative information going onto your credit report each month. Do whatever it takes to get the account closed and protect your credit. You might take a small hit by closing the account out, but it would be better than a long series of negative reports if he mismanages his credit.

Thanks again for your question!

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This entry was posted on Monday, September 22nd, 2008 at 09:45 and is filed under Clean Up Your Credit Report, Credit Score Repair FAQ, Reader's FAQ. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.