A common question during the West Virginia divorce process is how one can preserve their credit. We all have accounts that are in one person’s name or both names. How do you navigate that and how do you make sure that going forward after the divorce is over, that your credit is going to be preserved? You need to make sure that you are solely responsible for the debt payments. For example, let’s say you have a credit card or a piece of property that has a mortgage against it and both names are on that debt.
One thing that the family court does not have the authority to do is transfer the debt from one person’s name to the other. Somebody is going to have to be responsible for that payment on debt. You need to make sure that if at all possible you are going to be responsible for making that payment on that debt. In some cases, it might not be practical. For example, if all of the debts are in your name. If all of the debts are in your name and none of the debts are the other person’s name, then what’s going to happen is that you have to make a choice whether you can afford to make these payments alone. If you can’t, then the other person is going to have to be responsible for those debts.
You can preserve your credit if you’re solely responsible for that particular debt. You can either come to an agreement or you can take some of the money that you’re going to be awarded in equitable distribution and use that to pay off the current debts. If awarded money in the divorce, then simply take that money awarded and pay off that debt to save your credit.
An alternative for you is to do some basic financial planning going into the future. You can just try to tally up all the debts and then figure out if your name is on this debt, is my ex on that debt or do we share that debt. Sometimes people don’t have a good idea on it. Something that you need to be working on right now is figuring out whether the debt is in the other person’s name or your name or both of your names. This basically sums up what to do when it comes to debt and how you can most effectively preserve your credit during your West Virginia divorce.
