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Let's say a husband and a wife co-sign a mortgage or a line of credit or some type of banking product. Based on this "co-signing", is the bank officer permitted to share one spouse's credit report with the other? That is, can the bank officer show the husband the wife's credit report/history and vice-versa?

I would think that this is a violation of privacy since one's credit report is confidential, but I would like to know if any of you experts had any opinions on this!

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Banks have internal policies about what and with whom they will share information and they send a copy of that policy to their clients regularly. This is required by the the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act. In general, sharing a credit history with a different "consumer" than the one who provided it would be a violation of the GLB. I would not expect them to do so.

Normally, I would not expect the bank to even show you your own credit report. When a bank requests a credit report, they use that information purely internally, they do not provide credit reports to other people, not only for privacy reasons, but usually the contract they have with the credit bureau requires them never to share credit reports with other people.

Any information on the loan application itself will be visible to all parties to the loans.

(By the way, credit reports are not secret information. It is very easy for a person to obtain a credit report for anyone. This can be done by various methods. Most private investigators will provide you with anyone's credit report for a small fee, perhaps $100 to $200. So, if your wife wants to see your credit report, she will have no problem doing it.)

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  • In many jurisdictions (Australia for example) credit reporting agencies are required to provide you with your own report for free on request at not more than annual frequency - always a good idea to check up on what people say about you. – Dale M♦ Sep 21 '15 at 23:12
  • @DaleM He is not talking about a credit reporting agency. He is talking about a bank. – Cicero Sep 21 '15 at 23:30
  • If you apply for and purchase a loan product together, the disclosures always say that each person is entitled to all the information the other is entitled to. I've never seen were they attach a credit report to the loan documents, but in the event their under righting requires this attachment and they do, they would attach both and each would see it. I have personally been at closings when they discuss one person's credit issues as impacting the rate and discussing cheaper options with putting both on teen and one on loan. My point is, there is a sharing of information, even if not the rep't – gracey209 Sep 21 '15 at 23:33
  • @gracey209 As I said in my answer, any information in the loan application itself will be made available to both parties. This may or may not include information that would be in a credit report, such as records of previously incurred loans. – Cicero Sep 21 '15 at 23:43
  • Thanks everyone, this was very helpful information! Much appreciated. – Dr. Ikjyot Singh Kohli Sep 23 '15 at 13:12

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