Co-Signing A Loan (Your Advice)
Co-signing on a loan is not something to undertake lightly. The reason that people need you to co-sign is because they have some issues with their credit or otherwise there would be no need for you to do so. And even if they have the best intentions to pay, sometimes things don’t work out as expected and you get left cleaning up the mess as this reader found out:
My daughter and her husband were in a big financial bind last year when their car broke down. They needed a new one and to help them out I cosigned their car loan so that they could have transportation.
They stopped payment on the loan a few months ago when my daughter’s husband got laid off from work. They keep telling me that they are going to pay, but never do and since he still doesn’t have a job, I don’t see where they would get the money to do so.
Now the creditors are coming after me for payment. I don’t even drive the car so I don’t see why I should have to pay for it. I can’t afford this expanse so I need to know how I can get out of this situation? Do I have any options or am I stuck paying?
If you found yourself in a similar situation, what steps would you take in order to limit the financial damage of the situation?


a lot of the time there are “limited liability” loans that you can co-sign for, where you are only liable for a certain amount and it limits what the banks can take off you. maybe research those before signing the documents for the loan.
or if it’s already happened and you find yourself paying the payments for someone elses car maybe you could suggest to your daughter or the person who you signed the loan for, to sell something that they could do without, to cover the payments of the loan for a certain amount of time. perhaps they could sell the car and get one that is smaller and cheaper?