Does the guarantor's spouse have to sign the loan documents?

It is your decision as to whether not to include spousal waiver and consent language in your loan document package. Yes, ultimately this is a business decision that your company will need to make based on its own internal processes for documenting spousal waiver and consents and its independent risk analysis of the transaction.

GoDocs has identified several states to be a community property state. The GoDocs default is to include spousal waiver and consent language for such states with identified married borrowers and the GoDocs system does allow each lender to make a selection on this issue based on its own internal processes and risk tolerance.

Below are the states that we currently understand require the spouse of the guarantor to sign the guaranty as a non-signing spouse (meaning not a party to the guaranty, just waiving rights/subjecting interests in property which may be subject to the lender's enforcement of the guaranty):

Alaska
Arizona
Idaho
Louisiana
Nevada
Pennsylvania
New Mexico
Washington
Wisconsin

For states that do not fall on this list, (known as Spousal Consent or Community Property states) GoDocs believes it to be best practice to have the spouse also sign the guaranty as a non-signing spouse and provide that fail safe for Lenders (and future lenders to rely on). This documentation practice then leaves no potential grey area of the spouse waiving their rights. GoDocs advises customers to reach out to local counsel for legal analysis and opinions on the matter and to understand the risks of not including spousal waiver and consent language in the Loan Documents.