All bills made in marriage are joint bills in most of the country.  Disclaimer again, there may be states where this is not true, see your attorney for advice.  Car loans, mortgages, credit cards, all these bills will come to light during the divorce process.  Your question, how do I protect or fix my credit, can have a number of answers.

If you have a negative credit report before the divorce, you will have a negative report afterwards.  The divorce will not make your bad debt history go away.  Credit reporting agencies are really just the record keepers of your poor practices of paying your debt.  They aren’t “judging” you, they are simply keeping track.  In the divorce decree, it is likely debts will be apportioned to each side depending on either state law, the judges view of ability to pay, agreement between the parties, or any of a myriad other reasons.  It is at this point that your credit can become affected.

Just because your ex-partner is assigned a bill that formerly belonged to both of you, doesn’t mean it disappears from your credit report.  It could even be worse. If your ex fails to pay as agreed and your name remains on the account, your credit report will be affected.  Getting your name off accounts that are no longer yours requires going directly to your creditor and following through on their process to get your name removed.  This is a critical answer to your question on how do I fix my credit.

Here’s an example.  During my divorce in 1989, I was assigned the mortgage of a jointly owned home.  Seven years later when I decided to sell the property, my ex’s name was still on the mortgage note.  The sale required her signature before it could be completed.  She was the beneficiary of my paying my bills on this account for seven years.  It could have just as easily gone the other way.  Its much easier to maintain your credit than to ask the question, how do I fix my credit, after the damage has been done.