Good credit rating v's bad credit rating and joint bank accounts

josie_malone

Hi all,

I've been searching the site in the hope to get an answer regarding a joint bank account. Sorry if this has already been covered previously.

It's a simple question, but I'm finding it difficult to get a straight answer ANYWHERE. I have recently bought a house with my boyfriend. The mortgage is in my name due to him having a bad credit rating. We are both contributing equally to the mortgage etc.

To make things easier, we would like to have a joint bank account which we would both pay into each month. We would use the joint account to pay the mortgage, bills and insurance.

Basically, what I want to know is - will having a joint bank account with him affect my good credit rating??

Thanks for your help with this....any advice would be greatly appreciated!

josie

DizzleUK

In theory if he has a bad credit rating then yes it could affect your chances of getting credit as you would be financially linked.

In reality (for me at least) in the last 20 credit searches made either by myself or my partner, only 1 of them (and that was last autumn) resulted in an "associate search" where his credit file was searched in relation to an application made by me for just me.

Obviously if you make a joint application for anything then both files would definitely be looked at and any adverse information taken into account accordingly.

JohalaReewi

A joint account will create a financial link which means that your associate's credit history could be used by potential lenders as well as your own. Each lender has different rules and you won't know if this has happened. However, your associate will because they will have an associate search registered on their history! You might be better off using a sole named bank account to prevent the financial link until your BFs credit history sorts itself out. The other danger with a joint account is your BF could just empty it and disappear leaving you to pick up the tab.