Identify joint debts such as mortgages, personal loans, lines of credit, and credit cards. Joint debts will remain your responsibility even though your spouse may be willing to take them over. Your lender does not care about an agreement between you and your spouse when it comes to joint debt. The only way to get released is to pay the debt off or have your spouse refinance the debt in his/her name only. The same goes for personal guarantees that you may have signed to secure debt of a family business, for example.