features, such as the ability of the government to more easily lien assets of the debtor if defaulted.

At their heart, however, both types of loans represent private contractual agreements between the borrower and the lender. Unless the spouse contractually obligates herself to the debt, the spouse is a non-party to the loan agreement. if the spouse is not party to the agreement then the spouse is not obligated to pay the debt if the original borrower dies.

this is the case with all debt that is solely in the name of one spouse. I deal with probate estates every day. One of the first steps in every probate is to separate out the debt by who is contractually obligated to pay it. Unsecured debt owed by only one spouse is never transferred to the surviving spouse. Only when debt is secured by an asset jointly owned by the surviving spouse is it even an issue to consider. Even in those cases the surviving spouse is not obligated to pay the debt, but they often do just to protect the asset from foreclosure.