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The original was posted on /r/relationships by /u/throwaway172435 on 2024-01-22 06:33:43+00:00.
Throwaway because I have IRL people who may recognize this on my other account.
My partner has asked me if I would cosign on a car for her. We have only been together for about five months, though we have known each other since middle school, and been close friends for years, and I do generally trust her.
However, I don’t exactly feel comfortable doing that, but I also know she does not really have any other decent options.
She is currently in college and waiting to be placed in an internship program, but has bills to be paid and needs very flexible work to make money, so does DoorDash/Instacart etc for work.
Her cars engine died last week, and the cost of repairs is more than the value of the car, so she is obviously not going to repair it, so she is parting out the worthwhile working ptieces for money.
She needs a very reliable vehicle obviously, as she uses it to work. She has enough money put away that she can make a down payment on a decent used car, but not enough to buy something outright. She has very high credit utilization and bad credit overall because of student loans and a relatively small amount of credit card debt, so she was denied for financing on her own.
The only family member she is close enough to ask also has terrible credit, so is not an option. She knows I have extremely good credit, and recently finally paid off all my debts outside of my own car loan, and have no utilization otherwise, so it would obviously work with me involved.
However, there is the risk of being stuck with the payment should she be unable to pay it, and while I don’t believe she would stick me with it out of spite if we did happen to break up at some point before the loan was paid off, I have to consider all possibilities when making this decision.
The way I see it, there are really 4 options, unless I’m missing something.
1: Co-sign for her, accepting the risk of being stuck with the payment if she defaults, which I do perceive to be fairly low, even if not zero.
2: Respectfully decline to co-sign for her, advise her to buy a cheap car and save for a little while, to then trade that car in and buy a more reliable/nicer car when she can afford it on her own.
3: Respectfully decline to co-sign for her, but offer to co-own a car with her, but essentially treat it just as a co-signed car, it would be entirely hers to use, pay the bill etc, but I just have the insurance of having my name on the title, could use it in an emergency, and with an agreement that I’d take my name off of the title once the car is paid off.
4: Respectfully decline to co-sign for her, but offer to buy a second car of my own, that she can use for work/whatever else until she can eventually afford to buy it off of me herself.
Would love to get some people’s thoughts on which of these would be the best option, if any are totally unreasonable, or any other ideas you may have that I’m not seeing. Thanks in advance, kind strangers!
TL:DR Partner asked me to co-sign on a car for her, as she needs a reliable car for work. I think it’s risky, and am considering options.