My ex-wife's credit is being affected.

[overwhelmed79]

I live in California and I was under the assumption that, when filing for divorce, if I put all the credit card accounts under my name my ex-wife's credit score wouldn't be affected if I stopped making payments. I stopped making payments in July and plan on filing for chapter 7 in June 2009. The one credit card that was opened as a joint account between us (which hasn't been paid in a few months) has caused her credit score to drop over 100 points and her other credit card accounts are reducing her amount of available credit because of this, even though our divorce was finalized in early October. I had to make a payment to the joint account just so that they can't hold the late payments against her. But now I'm concerned that other accounts or the chapter 7 will affect her. Should I continue to make payments to this one account until I finally file for chapter 7?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

[StartingOver08]

In order to not affect your ex-wife's credit, you would have had to close any joint account you have with her. In order to close the account, it would have to be paid off. Once you open an account jointly - the only way to separate the parties on the account is to pay it off and close it. Otherwise it will always be a joint account with both people being 'jointly and severally liable' (this phrase usually occurs in the cc agreement).

If you file BK on a joint account, the other person is responsible for payment of that account.

[overwhelmed79]

So I have to pay off this account entirely. Ok. Looks like I will have to wait a little longer to file for chapter 7.