Need Your Advice & Opinions!!

I have always respected your advice and opinions and would like your opinion about this situation. A while back I had mentioned a friend who was having a hard time with his credit. To make a long story short, he asked if I would cosign his apartment lease. In a roundabout way I asked what he had done to FIX his credit??? I had sent him some info based on the little I know about credit. He came back with all the reasons why they wouldn’t work. I then became blunt and said that in reality he was asking me to pay his rent. He said no he wasn’t. I asked him what would happen if he was in a car accident or for any other reasons he couldn’t work who was going to pay his rent?? I think when I originally posted I had mentioned that I was raised that if I wanted something, I saved or that I didn’t take the best until I was able to pay for it. I guess for some reason either my friend is very backward or is looking for an easy way out. I am not sure why he doesn’t understand what I’m saying is …you would feel so much better about yourself if you helped yourself. When I said no, he didn’t talk to me for about 3 months.

Now, he emailed me again saying he found an apartment and is giving the complex 6 months of rent but is 2 points below his credit score. He asked again if I would cosign and they would release my signature in 3 months.

I have known my friend for about 15 years and he is a good person, he works in accounting and is currently managing a department but he doesn’t like confrontation. He got into a relationship with someone and that person took his credit and destroyed it. I told him that he allowed that to happen….he doesn’t like it when I say things like that.

Here is my question, do any of you know anything about credit ratings. I know that mine is excellent so I don’t worry about others. I know that there are some businesses out there that help people get cars and stuff with low credit scores. It seems strange to me that this complex won’t accept his 6 months of rent and take him even if his score is 2 points below what it should be. They would be getting 6 months of rent now…even if he left after 6 months the apartment isn’t sitting empty. Is the rating saying you're 98% good and 2% bad so we can't rent you this apartment. It almost seems to me like he said OK...I would be asking all kinds of questions and then looking for another place....am I crazy???

He doesn't sound like a bad person and you respect him? I always ask myself if face with such a situation - if the worst scenario happens, can I accept the consequences? Will it affect the relationship? If the answer is yes, do it.

Don't do it. Your friend messed up his own money and credit rating, now he wants to mess up yours.

Follow Polonius' advice to Laertes: "Neither a borrower nor a lender be; for loan oft loses both itself and friend."

I can't imagine letting someone I wasn't married to share my financial well-being. It's just too perilous. (Even sometimes a spouse. Lady Bird Johnson, Lyndon Johnson's wife, once said, "I wouldn't have a joint bank account with the Angel Gabriel.")

My other worry is that the most likely thing to destroy a friendship is money matters. I've seen it happen.

If he has a job, it may be possible that he can find some sort of reputable assistance program to help him. But I can't feel comfortable suggesting that you get involved. If you want to lend him money, that's different; you'd only be out that money. But if you get personally involved in his finances, what would you be liable for if he falls apart in some way?

Olympia said:

If you want to lend him money, that's different; you'd only be out that money.

Click to expand...

This.

I don't know about your area, but here in Alaska there are programs that help people of low credit scores get a rental or even a mortgage. They cosign or whatever they do it gets people in, but doesn't affect another person's credit at all.

DO NOT risk your credit score. It takes seconds to ruin it and 10+ years to gain it back.


If he's truly a good friend he wouldn't keep pressuring you/putting you in this position. He should understand your reasons and not use your friendship as a way to "force" his needs on you. :disapp:

Absolutely don't do it. Olympia's right, lend him money if you must help him, but I'd add, think of it as a gift. If you do that, its better than fretting every month if he doesn't pay, and if he does pay, you can be happily surprised.

Cosigning anything goes on your credit rating. Even if the person you cosign with pays religiously, you will still find your credit score is lower than if you did not cosign something, because the loan is treated by the credit companies as an obligation of yours (leaving you with less uncommitted money to, say, pay a mortgage of your own).

Furthermore, being a wicked old woman, it is now sounding rather fishy to me.

The guy doesn't speak to you for 3 months, and then suddenly he wants you to cosign something for 3 months, when you refused to cosign something already. I would ask, where was he living the last 3 months? Did someone else cosign then?

Where are his relatives? If he has any, why aren't they cosigning?

Has he declared bankruptcy yet? If not, he should.

Since he was the victim of an unscrupulous person, I have to ask whether there are identity theft issues that he is having? If so, you don't want to sign anything that links your credit to his, even if he is the Angel Gabriel.

Oh Dee, listen to the advice here! No "friend" would put you in a position like this. Money and friends/family never mix well. And to punish you with silence because you don't do what he wants? Again, this is a friend? Stick to your guns! Say you'll be glad to support him in other ways but not financially. And if he cuts you, how great a friend was he anyway?

You have received very rational advice. I would, however, consider other not so pragmatic, cold fact based perspectives. I don't know this person but you do. How do you feel about him as a person and as a friend? How do you feel about yourself if you help and if you don't help him? Was he really punishing you wen he didn't speak to you for three months? He just might be embarrassed or even ashamed after being turned down. (Did you try to reach him after turning him down?) If I were you and if I felt that he was a good and basically trustworthy person in an unfortunate situation and especially if I believed he was a real friend, I would help him. If I felt the need to protect myself, I might ask him to hand me three months' rent money to release to the landlord each month till my name is off the lease. I would feel good to help him turn his life around, especially if I felt he would do the same for me.
What are friends for anyway?

Of course, if you feel negatively about him or that you can't afford the risk, don't do it. Listen to your guts.

Sorry, but .. "releasing your signature in three months?" Is that in writing in the lease?

Mathman said:

Sorry, but .. "releasing your signature in three months?" Is that in writing in the lease?

Click to expand...

Dee has to make sure it is if she agrees to cosign. Actually her friend should make sure it is to prove his honest intention. Otherwise, he is a fraud.

Of course I hope Dee consults a lawyer if she decides to do anything at all. These things are not set up so that ordinary people can understand the subtleties.

Don´t do it. In my opinion your friend should not even ask this from you. Maybe you should suggest him to find a smaller/cheaper appartment which he could afford without problems? If you have cash you don´t need, maybe you could just give him some money without expecting to get it back. Personally I would not do even that. A friend should not put you in this difficult position! Maybe you should just let him fade away from your life.

Years ago Eleanor Roosevelt was asked about making loans to friends & she replied 'only if you can afford to consider it a gift if it is not repaid". IMO, that applies to cosigning a note, mortgage, whatever. If you can afford to pay his rent for however long he defaults on it & not expect or need repayment then be a Good Samaritan & help him out. If you can't afford to pay his living expenses then tell him "no. I can't afford to risk my good credit rating to help you out." If it angers him so be it. (Why doesn't he ask a male buddy for the money?) Good luck.

Don't do it. While your friend may have the best of intentions, you never know what life will bring. What happens if he has a major health problem? Loses his job for whatever reasons? Decides to move before his lease expires? Let's someone else move in that takes advantage of him again?

If he was asking for a loan to help with the deposit and you could afford it, I would say ok since there are no long term ramifications to your credit and you'd likely only loan the money if you were sure you could afford to 'lose' the money.

Also, I've never heard of anyone needing a co-signer for just 3 months of a lease.

dorispulaski said:

Cosigning anything goes on your credit rating. Even if the person you cosign with pays religiously, you will still find your credit score is lower than if you did not cosign something, because the loan is treated by the credit companies as an obligation of yours (leaving you with less uncommitted money to, say, pay a mortgage of your own).

Click to expand...

Doris, this is the kind of information I didn't know. Thanks for letting me know.

dorispulaski said:

Has he declared bankruptcy yet? If not, he should.

Click to expand...

What would declaring bankruptcy do for him?? Way back when I had suggested that he contact legal aid to tell them his predicament and see what advice they would give him. He said he wasn't going to call because he wouldn't file bankruptcy...so I didn't know what that meant for him.

This is the kind of information that makes me think that he's done nothing to help himself. He wants the easy way out.

Now you're thinking straight, Dee. He seems to have done nothing to help himself. And it's inadvisable for you to be his way out. You already know the reasons.

If you're trying to repair your credit, generally it can be better to declare bankruptcy than to just sit there. Declaring bankruptcy stops the bleeding and gets rid of a lot of debts you can't pay. Bad debts stay on your credit for 7 years, bankruptcy for 10 - but if you have bad debts that you don't think you will be able to discharge in 3 years, you're better off to go bankrupt.
http://www.dailyfinance.com/2011/06...tcy-5-steps-to-rebuilding-your-credit-financ/

http://sites.lawhelp.org/documents/74261bankruptcy.html

Your friend needs a plan of how he is either going to get his debts up to date in 3 years, or if he can't realistically plan to do that, to go bankrupt.

BTW, you may be able to get a loan after you have gone bankrupt, provided a couple years have passed, but you will pay higher rates.

The more I think about it, the more I'm convinced you should not cosign even if he were a saint. He's told you that he's got no other option but you - yet he refuses to even approach the options you've suggested. That is a HUGE red flag IMO. Especially if he has the audacity to think that the only way you can help him is by your $$ or signature.

Thanks everyone, you all have been such a great help. I didn't know lots of the information that Doris was able to provide. I think if he had listened to me in 2009 he would be doing OK right now instead of suffering. In 2009, I had sent him some credit sites and legal aid. He said he couldn't use the credit site because he already knew how to handle his money and that it look bad if any of his creditors found out he was using one of these sites. Even though he is a nice guy he has a stubborn streak. As Doris pointed out when you cosign you take on more than just your signature on a piece of paper but I didn't know that.

I would imagine that he is feeling desperate right now and that's why he asked me again. Now that I have the information you gave me I can pass those things off to him. He doesn't seem to understand what cosigning means either.

Everything I have right now I earned and I have excellent credit ...and it will stay that way.

I knew that I could get excellent information here...you're all the best!!!