Can my brother fix his credit?
Well, he could negotiate with the bank to pay off the loan before the foreclosure takes effect. That would obviously cost him a large pile of cash but might remove the foreclosure, and possibly the late payments, from his record. But the real answer is that, having signed the note, he should have been making sure payments occurred so it never got close to foreclosure. That's what he promised the bank he would do. Having failed to do so, he really isn't in a position to complain when they tell other businesses that he didn't meet that promise. In a nutshell, not really.  That's the risk you take when you co-sign for someone.  The lender only made the loan because of the strength of your brother's credit, not your mother's, so his reputation (in the form of his credit rating) is going to take the hit because of his mother's behaviors. The one thing he can do is this:  The credit bureaus allow you to add a comment or explanation to your credit file which may be helpful, provided potential creditors read it, which is never a guarantee.  It's worth trying though, so suggest to him to look into it. Here's a link for him/you/anyone to look at that can help explain how this works and what effects it can have: Adding a comment to your credit file for negative items I hope this helps. Good luck!
If your parents can afford to shell out $1,250 a month for 5 years, they would pretty much have the debt paid off, provided the credit card companies don't start playing games with rates. If that payment is too high, maybe you could kick in $5k every few months to knock the principal down.  If they think the business can keep puttering along without losing more money, that may be the way to go. Five years is long enough that the business or property may have recovered some value. Another option, depending on the value of the home, could be a reverse mortgage. I don't know how the economy has affected those programs, but that might be a good option to get the debt cleared away. My grandfather was in a similar position back in the 70's. He owned taverns in NYC that catered to an industrial clientele... the place was booming in the 60s and my grandfather and his brother owned 4 locations at one point. But the death of his brother, post-Vietnam malaise, suburban exodus and shutting of industry really hurt the business, and he ended up selling out his last tavern in 1979 -- which was a dark hour in NYC history and real estate values. A few years later, that building sold for a tremendous amount of money... I believe 10x more. I don't know whether there was a way for his business to survive for another 5-7 years, as I was too young to remember. But I do remember my grandfather (and my father to this day) being melancholy about the whole affair. It's hard to have to work part-time in your 60's and be constantly reminded that your family business -- and to some degree a part of your life -- ended in failure. The stress of keeping things afloat when you're broke is tough. But there's also a mental reward from getting through a tough situation on your own. Good luck! "America just needs to get the cash out. I believe in the power of government to better everyone's lives.  But I'm in NZ.  Low corruption here with a strong safety net.  Universal health care. I have a hospital appointment tomorrow.  They are going to fix my chest deformity for free even though technically it's ""cosmetic"".  I was earning $50 an hour mowing lawns for 6 years.  I did a double degree in the late 90s for about $7k a year.  My Asthma medicine costs $5.00.  My brother had cancer - treated free (he's fine now).  My Mum's heart attack - free (she's all good too).  If you start from such a depressed place (believe me I get why Americans feel the way they do) I think you run the risk of ending up in a rather cynical place - government can't help me.  You got republicans essentially running on a ticket of ""government doesn't work"" and ensuring it doesn't by their actions.   I dunno mate.  Keep your chin up.  I feel like America is getting close to a real jolt to get it back on track.  She's really out of step with other comparable countries.  America is still great despite itself.  But it'll get back on track.  The boomers will die off and progress will become possible again." "Your dad may have paid an ""opportunity cost"" for that outright purchase.  If the money he saved had been invested elsewhere, he may have made more money.  If he was that well off, then his interest rate should have been the lowest possible.  My own father is a multi-millionaire (not myself) and he could afford to have paid for his house outright.  He didn't though.  To do so would have meant cashing in on several investments.  I don't know his interest rate but let's say it was 2.5%.  If he invests that million dollars into something he expects to get a 7% return on in the same period, then he would make more money by borrowing the money.  Hence, he would be paying an opportunity cost. Assuming you need to work, some jobs will also do background or credit checks.  Credit cards can be used by well off people to actually make them money by offering rewards (compared to straight cash transactions).  The better your credit history, the better the cards/rewards you can get.  You can build that credit history better by having these loans and making timely payments." There are a number of ways you could do this. The first step is to work out what a fair price is. Either make an estimate that you both accept, possibly getting a real estate agent to give you a free evaluation, or get a professional evaluation from some you both accept. Once you have a valuation, the simplest of course is to pay your brother that value (in return for his transferring his ownership to you). Hopefully you have that much money in savings. If you don't have that money (but do have income) you may need to take a mortgage, which would put your home at risk. If the pollution you speak of hasn't been fixed a mortgage may be out of the question. An alternative, if you have income, and your brother doesn't need the money right now, is to make the money you owe him for the house a loan from him to you. He transfers his ownership of the house to you, you pay him its value, but he simultaneously loans you that exact same amount. No actual money needs to change hands. You would make him a regular payment, essentially the interest on that loan, and also make an agreement to pay off the principal of the loan (i.e. the value of the house) when the house is sold, or when you pass away. While you could do this informally if everyone agrees, it would be much better to make a legal agreement, so that everybody is exactly sure what they are expecting. Monitoring your credit doesn't do much. There are some vendors that actually have staff to repair your credit/identity. Substantially all of the credit monitoring services do what they say and monitor.  If you have a problem they notify you then point you to the place(s) that you can work with to repair the issue.  This is not terribly valuable, definitely not worth having multiples, but the repair aspect of some IS very valuable.   You sign a limited power of attorney and set loose someone else to fix the problem. I concur with the other answers about not mixing family and money: the one whose loans are paid off second will be taking the credit risk of the other not paying/being able to pay. There may also be tax implications. That said, if you do still want to do this, I think there's a fairly straightforward way to account for the payments. With your scenario, your brother should make you a personal loan at some interest rate inbetween 5% and 10%. That loan would be tracked independently of the actual student loans. Any money that your brother transfers to you to pay off your loans, add to that personal loan, and later on once your loans are paid off you start repaying the loan to him and he uses the proceeds for his own loans. The interest rate will determine how the benefit of paying off the 10% loans is shared: if the rate is set at 10% then your brother will get all the benefit, if 5% you will get all the benefit, and 7.5% would roughly share it out. This means that you can still manage your own student loans separately. Your brother can choose how little or much to commit to the snowball rather than his own loans (of course he should first make the minimum payments on his own loans). Anything he does loan you benefits you both if we ignore the credit and tax issues - he gets more than the 5% interest on his own loans, and you pay less than the 10% interest on your loans. You'll need to track the payments each way on this personal loan and apply interest to it every so often, I'd suggest monthly (beware that the monthly equivalent of 5% annual interest is not 5%/12, because of compounding). "Here is a simple loan payment calculator.  If you allow early principal repayment, then you should just be able to plug in the new principal amount to find his new monthly payment (someone please correct me if I'm mistaken). Are you averse to creating a spreadsheet yourself in excel?  I suppose it could become quite an undertaking, depending on how detailed you chose to get with the interest.  Seems like it would be more direct and serve the dual purpose of recordkeeping. It's important to agree in advance whether pre-payments go to principal or go partly to interest (prepaying for periodic amounts not yet due, which are mixed principal and interest).  It's a family loan, so it probably makes sense to allow the prepayments to pay down principal; you don't need to structure your interest income and prevent him from depriving you of interest income (which many bank loans will do).  Allowing early principal repayment is pretty easy to calculate in your own excel spreadsheet, since you just need to know the remaining principal, time outstanding, and the interest rate. Note that if you are a US citizen, then the interest paid to you will be taxable income to you (""ordinary income"" rate).  Your brother will not be able to deduct the interest payments, unless maybe they are used for something like his business or perhaps mortgage.  There is no deduction for just a personal loan. Also, if you instead structured it without interest, then the interest not charged would be considered a gift under US gift tax law.  As long as the annual interest were under the gift exclusion amount ($14,000) then there would be no gift tax.  With no interest and no gift, you would not have tax consequences." Note that this kind of entry on your credit record may also affect your ability to get a job. Basically, you're going on record as not honoring your commitments... and unless you have a darned good reason for having gotten into that situation and being completely unable to get back out, it's going to reflect on your general trustworthiness.