Filing for bankruptcy as a married couple and filing for bankruptcy as a single individual are two very different processes. If you are considering marriage and are in a poor financial situation, it may be in your best interest to file for bankruptcy before being married. This way, your poor credit will not have an effect on your spouse. If, however, you are already married and are considering filing for bankruptcy, you should know that your decision will not only affect you but your spouse and family as well. While it will not affect your children directly, it will have an impact on the ability of both you and your spouse to secure credit in the future. This can often make it difficult to pay for college or to secure housing or car loans, things that are all a vital part of taking care of a family.

When you become married, you enter into a legally binding contract with your spouse. One of the terms of this contract makes it so that your debts are also your spouse’s debts and vice versa. So, whenever you file for bankruptcy, your spouse, in effect, also files for bankruptcy. Any bills or accounts that you had together will be affected, and you will both face the credit consequences of filing for bankruptcy. With a Chapter 13 Bankruptcy, you can expect the incident to impact your credit for seven years. With a Chapter 7 Bankruptcy, your credit and your spouse’s credit will be affected for an even longer duration of ten years.

Depending on the type of bankruptcy you file, other consequences may come to your spouse. In a Chapter 7 Bankruptcy, you assets will be seized and used to pay off your outstanding debts. Even those assets that belong in part to your spouse can still be seized. There are some exceptions to this rule, but they usually do not revolve around your spouse having ownership in a particular item or asset. Chapter 13 Bankruptcy, as a general rule, will be less harmful to your spouse, but they will still deal with its credit and financial consequences.

For these reasons, it is important that the married person considering bankruptcy talk this over with his or her spouse. Since the decision will impact both parties, it is imperative that both people be involved in the planning and filing stages and that both people understand the consequences and any agreements that are made or entered into. While bankruptcy is not always a bad thing and can, in fact, be exactly what some people need to get back on their financial feet, it is important that all involved people be aware of what they are getting into. Being knowledgeable and having an open and honest dialogue with your spouse is of vital importance.