Fire & Credit

Hi!
My husband and I had perfect credit until last year when I began a business expansion.  I entered into a sales contract & lease on a commercial facility, but a fire in the building closed me down for almost a year.  Now I’m finally reopened, and got an SBA loan to purchase the building, but racked up almost 100K in credit card debt keeping things afloat (yes, we had that much available beforehand.)  This is all on our personal credit, as I did not think to try to get business credit beyond a 5K credit card, and once the problems started it was too late.

Our credit scores are around 585-620 right now.  No negative items, but utilizing 95% of available credit.
Now I really need to be able to get business credit to do some equipment leasing needed.   My husband and I have joint credit cards.  I’m wondering if taking me off some of his cards, and vice versa, will improve my score by lowering my amout of debt? 
Or is is just about % of credit used.    Some of his trade lines are longer than mine, but I have over 10 yrs.   There is one card with about 25K and another with 15K that are both “his” with me as a co-signer.  

#2.   Can the original creditor take inquiries off the report? We were trying to apply for a home equity loan to pay off some of these debts.   We applied, did all paperwork, even had an appraiser out, but then were told that, because we are in Texas, we can only have 1 home equity product at a time, and our current mortgage is a “home equity mortgage.”  Therefore, we can only get a home equity loan if we refinance our house.  Since we have 5.25 fixed for 30 yrs, we’re not wanting to do that.  Now, we only have one mortgage, we paid 20% down when we purchased 8 yrs ago, but we did a cash-out refinance in 2004.  
Recently the bank where we have our mortgage called, asked about home equity, and I told them we didn’t qualify.  They insisted that we could get one, she even checked with her manager.  After pulling our credit, approving us, then they too said we didnt’ qualify.  Now I have 3 more inquiries on the report from their various offices.   We have multiple multiple inquiries on the acct from the commercial mortgage, I was trying to avoid having anyone pull the credit. 

Thanks for a great site

Sarah

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Hi Sarah,

My guess is that you won’t be able to be taken off your husband’s cards easily unless you were signed on as an authorized user and not “as a co-signer”.  Even when you are removed from the account, the tradeline reference and history remains on the credit report; it just stops updating for the individual removed.  Given what you’ve written, without the balance being paid down, I don’t see much credit score oomph provided.

Original creditor can’t remove inquiries.  Look into TrueCredit and beware of the split file.

Sarah, it sounds like you’ve got an excellent business plan and congratulations on the SBA loan.  Fire is dangerous and when uncontrolled it can destroy.  Credit is the same.  What would be ideal is an equity partner. 

Thanks for the questions and hope this helps.

Paul