Cosigner
A cosigner is someone who signs a loan alongside the borrower and becomes equally responsible for repaying it. Lenders accept a cosigner with strong credit to approve a borrower who couldn't qualify alone — common on student and first-time auto loans.
A cosigner is not a character reference; they are a second borrower with all the obligations and none of the benefit. The debt appears on their credit report and counts in their debt-to-income ratio, so cosigning a car loan can reduce the mortgage they themselves qualify for. Missed payments damage their score, and lenders may pursue the cosigner directly without exhausting the borrower first. Release is rarer than people assume — some student loans offer it after a run of on-time payments, but many agreements provide no exit short of refinancing the loan into the borrower's own name. The workable rule is never to cosign an amount you could not comfortably repay yourself.
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