 TITLE: How Does Cosigning Affect Your Credit? CONTENT: When Can Cosigning Hurt Your Credit?\n------------------------------------\nWhen you cosign a loan, credit card or rental agreement, you take on a legal obligation to make payments if the primary borrower can't or doesn't follow through. Cosigning may hurt your credit if:\n*   **A payment is over 30 days past due.** The creditor can report the late payment to the credit bureaus. Every late payment can then show up in your credit reports and hurt your credit scores.\n*   **The cosigned vehicle is repossessed.** If the vehicle you cosigned for is repossessed, that can also hurt your credit regardless of whether you used the vehicle.\n*   **The account is sent to collections.** A collection account can hurt your credit even if you weren't aware that the primary borrower was behind on payments. This can happen with rental agreements as well, even when the landlord wasn't reporting the on-time rental payments.\nOpening a new account can also hurt your credit scores if it adds a hard inquiry to your credit report and brings down the average age of your accounts. These are relatively minor scoring factors, but you may see a dip in your scores right after the account is opened and reported. END