Will my spouses stocks be applicable to a judgment against me?

Preliminary, you can file a bankruptcy in your name only; your wife does not have to file jointly with you. If you file by yourself, your wife's income will have to be included in both your Means Test budget and regular bankruptcy budget, but assets solely titled only in your wife's name do not have to be listed in your bankruptcy petition. Of course, debts owed by your wife, either individually or jointly with you, would not be discharged by your solo filing. You should probably discuss this option with competent, local bankruptcy counsel. If you elect to not file on your own, a judgment creditor can only collect against your assets (and not your wife's), assuming you have not fraudulently transferred assets to your spouse. With the history that you present, your creditors would not be able to collect your debts from your wife's stock portfolio.

If she inherited the stock then it does not come into bk nor is it available to your creditors. It is her separate property.

Yours is a tricky question to answer, because of community property law in Washington. If the stock your wife inherited is still in the form she received it, and has not been cashed in or any proceeds put in her bank account (or a joint bank account), then chances are her stock will still be considered her separate property. However, the problem is that your credit card debts are probably joint debts under community property law, so that any creditors that sued you would sue both of you. Once they got a judgment against your wife, her stock would be available to the creditors. You might want to consider filing a Chapter 13 bankruptcy. It would have the following advantages: 1. If you filed jointly, all unsecured community property debts would be removed by the bankruptcy. 2. Your wife's stocks would not be taken from her. 3. Even if you ended up paying your unsecured creditors 100% in the Chapter 13, you would still be better off than dealing with them outside the bankruptcy. First of all, the balance on each debt would be frozen at the time you filed the bankruptcy, so your debt couldn't get any larger. Second, you would pay only those creditors who file claims in the Chapter 13 (there are always some who don't file, and don't have to be paid). Third, if you pay 100%, your interest to each creditor who files a claim will be less than 1/2 of 1%. If you end up paying less than 100% to the creditors who file claims, you will not pay any interest. Outside of bankruptcy, your debt keeps increasing, because most of your monthly payment goes to interest, so you end up paying your creditors twice what you owe them, or more, and it takes a long time to pay them off.

Based on your fact set, your spouse's stocks would not be available to YOUR judgement creditors. You indicate you are not an owner on those stocks, so they are not your asset. Note, your fact set also assumes she is not a co signer or co debtor on any of your debts.