Hello, this is Roger Ghai, and I practice bankruptcy law in the Kennesaw, Acworth, Marietta, and Atlanta areas. We accept cases from there too. I wanted to talk today a little bit about if you file a bankruptcy, is the joint account holder protected? And this most frequently happens with respect to either a car loan or to a credit card.
So let’s say for example, you’ve got a joint account with your wife. It’s a joint credit card and you owe $50,000 and you qualify for filing the bankruptcy, but she doesn’t want to file with you. So what would happen in that case is that you would be legally relieved from the obligation to repay that credit card, if you file a Chapter 7. But however, the credit card company could still go ahead and collect and sue your wife for that $50,000 balance.
Now, the same thing will happen in the event that you have a car loan and that you’ve got a co-signer on the car loan. If you file a bankruptcy, and you surrender the car and you just want to be relieved from that financial obligation, that will happen if you file a Chapter 7 case. But what will also happen is the car loan company will go ahead and then pursue the joint account holder on that.
So, you want to have that be fully considered before you file a bankruptcy and be fully informed of what the possible ramifications are to somebody else who’s a joint account holder or on a joint loan with you.
If you have questions about how that should be really treated, there are ways around it that can protect the joint account holder. So call my office at (770) 792-1000. Thank you.