I'm Worried About Protecting My Credit Score During My Divorce In Florida. What Can I Do?

Credit scores can take a nose dive during the divorce process for several reasons.

There may not be enough money there to pay for the expenses associated with a divorce, including two separate residences, and debt obligations can get ignored.

Unfortunately, after the divorce you may need good credit to be able to purchase a new home or vehicle.

If your credit score is harmed during the divorce, you may not be able to make those purchases.

When you first begin seriously thinking about divorcing, that’s the time to start taking steps to protect your credit score.

The first step to protecting your credit score is discovering which debts are yours, which are your spouse’s, and which you are jointly responsible for.

You can discover this by ordering a credit report. You may also consider signing up for a credit monitoring service so that you will be notified if there’s a change to your creditor history.

If possible, you should close all joint credit accounts that do not have a balance.

Tell the bank or creditor that you will not be responsible for any charges after that date.

Follow up with a letter, and keep a copy of it.

If a joint account does have a balance, request that a freeze be placed on the account to prevent future charges.

On all joint accounts, it’s important that you make sure that those accounts get paid on a regular basis.

If your payments are late during the divorce, this can hurt your credit score a lot.

Even if your spouse is responsible for the debt, your credit score will be hurt if the account isn’t paid.

Also, you should close joint bank accounts. You will most likely have to give your spouse half of the proceeds in the account - check with your attorney.