You Cosigned a Loan, They Defaulted. What Now?

The advice for cosigning a loan for a family member or friend is always virtually the same: Don't do it, and if you do, understand the consequences if something goes wrong.

But what if you ignore the advice and cosign, and the loan goes south for reasons beyond your control?

Although there is no database that tracks cosigned loans, anecdotal evidence and some data suggest cosigning is common – and it isn't always parents cosigning for children. In 2010, LeaseTrader.com, a national car leasing marketplace, reported a 29 percent increase over the previous two years in the number of parents asking their kids to cosign a car loan for them.

So what happens if you've tried to help a loved one, and that loved one can't keep up with the payments, so you're stuck paying for his or her credit cards, student loans, car or even house? Or perhaps you also can't pay, and you're watching your once-sparkling credit score crash and burn. Maybe the situation is even worse, and your family member or friend won't make the payments. What then? Are you stuck paying off the loan, or is there an exit plan?

The answer to both parts of the question is yes. Neither situation is pretty, but if your goal is to simply extract yourself from the predicament, here are some of your options.

Stall. Just how bad is this situation? If the original person doing the borrowing is willing to pay but can't right now, and you can't even temporarily take over the payments, you can always see if the lender will put a forbearance in place. This is essentially a temporary reprieve, usually for just a month or two, although with student loans, the time can be more generous, like six to 12 months. If you just need to buy some time, you may be able to.

Take out a loan to pay off the cosigned loan. As Richard Lee, a partner at the Los Angeles-based law firm Salisian Lee LLP, suggests, you or the borrower might find a third party, "like a debt-consolidation company or some other hard-money private lender, willing to take a risk by financing the early payoff of the original loan and taking an assignment of the principal debt."

The idea is that this third party pays off the debt, and the borrower – that is, your adult daughter or relative – is responsible for the new loan, Lee says. The odds of finding a lender who will do this are not good, but if you can swing it, your problems are over.

But your family member's problems are just beginning. He or she almost certainly has shoddy credit at this point, so the new loan will likely have a much more severe interest rate or terms. You might not be able to stomach that if you think this loan has the potential to ruin your relative's life. But everyone's financial situation is different, and this might be the perfect solution for you, and even for both of you.

Refinance. "This can sometimes be a long shot, but if the loan is through a bank that the signer or cosigner have worked with in the past, and there is history, it's possible the bank will be willing to renegotiate the terms of the loan," says Sue Katz, a community outreach coordinator with American Consumer Credit Counseling, a nonprofit based in Auburndale, Mass.

The problem is that lenders are most willing to refinance if the borrower and cosigner have good to excellent credit, and if the borrower has been having trouble making payments, that's probably no longer the case.

Another point to consider: Even if you and your borrower can refinance for a smaller monthly payment, the borrower may wind up paying more in interest if the loan is stretched further into the future, from, say, a three-year loan into a five-year loan. But what if the borrower still can't make the payments, even though they're smaller, and you end up taking over? In the long run, you're worse off because you'll pay much more in interest.

"Once your co-signer has reverted to late payments or defaulted altogether, it has been my experience that your best way out is not to try and renegotiate the loan to smaller payments," says Kristen Fricks-Roman, a financial adviser with the global wealth management division of Morgan Stanley in Atlanta.