Oklahoma Divorce | Protecting Your Credit Score

If you’re planning to divorce you need to protect your finances, and especially your credit score.

Your credit score is one of the most important factors in your life. Your credit score is how lenders, employers, and insurance companies judge their risk of lending you money or providing you with an opportunity to work.

You Should Close Joint Credit Accounts Immediately

When you both signed the application for that credit card or loan, you both agreed you would be responsible for the debt, no matter how the debt is distributed in the divorce.

If you or your spouse misses a payment, makes a late payment, or defaults on a loan you both will suffer the consequences in your credit rating.  

The Biggest Hit Your Credit Score Takes is On the First Late Payment

According to FICO data, a 30-day delinquency could cause as much as a 90 to a 110-point drop in a FICO score for a consumer who has a FICO score of 780, and who has never missed a payment on any credit account.

My Example

My former spouse missed a $25 credit card payment simply because the e-statement notification never made it to our email account. Because of this, we were unaware of the required payment date.

When I signed into the online web portal for the credit card account to check when the payment was due I was shocked to see that the required payment date had passed two weeks before.  I called the bank and explained the situation and paid off the account immediately, but it was too late.

Because we were late one time our credit score dropped by more than 90 points the next month.