How Credit Card Debt Can Affect Your Pennsylvania Divorce

Are you going through a divorce here in Pennsylvania and suspect your spouse may have run up credit card debt? What can you do to protect yourself if you think your husband or wife is running up the credit card bills and you want a divorce?

A Pennsylvania divorce is difficult enough. To learn that your spouse has run up credit card debt can only add to the stress and hurt of divorce. In Pennsylvania the divorce process will not only include dividing up marital assets and property (think house, bank accounts, cars, etc.), but also the splitting up of marital debt (a process known here in Pennsylvania as equitable distribution). The debt to be split up does include credit card debt.

Even if your spouse is the one who ran up the credit card bills during the marriage, regardless of whose name may be on the credit card, both of you will be on the hook for payments.

But there’s hope! While rare, some creditors do allow for the transfer of a debt from both spouses to one spouse. Even if a debt cannot be transferred to the name of one spouse, the debt is still part of the equitable distribution process. A debt is not always split 50/50 between spouses. Who will be responsible for the debt after the divorce and what percentages of the debt a spouse may have to pay, if any, is determined on a case by case basis.