Financial / Tax info

Generally, unmarried people may not be responsible for each other’s debts if the debt is not occurred through a joint account. In general, if only one of the people is the account holder, only that person would be legally responsible for the debt from the court’s and creditors’ point of view.

However, if the two unmarried people had a contract, where one promised to pay back half of the debt or to be responsible for half of the debt, then that contract could be enforceable in court. In other words, one person might be able to sue the other person in court to try to get a money judgment against him/her. However, these types of promises to be responsible for debts are often spoken and not in writing, which makes them much harder to prove to a judge.

If both people’s names are on a bank loan or car financing account, or both people are on a credit card account as “co-applicants,” both people may be responsible for the debt. This may depend on the kind of account, whether one person “co-signed” for the account and agreed to be responsible for paying the money back if the other person could not, and other factors.

You may want to speak with a lawyer as soon as possible about what legal options are available to address the debt. You can find free and paid lawyers in STATE on our website. You may also want to look at our information on financial abuse.