Legal Question in Credit and Debt Law in Pennsylvania

Yes and no. Your son obviously needs to keep paying on the loan. So long as he does, well and good. If your son does not pay, then the lender is going to come after you. If something happens to you and you die, the lender can still go after your son as well as file a claim against your estate. While your wife would not directly be responsible for the debt, the heirs/beneficiaries cannot keep assets and not pay bills of the estate. Depending on what you own that is probate assets, any claims like this loan would be filed with your estate. It would then be the duty of the personal representative to pay the claims. If there is enough money/assets in the estate, then all claims are paid. If there is not enough money, then claims get paid in order of priority and a loan like this may be of lower priority than other claims and may end up getting nothing.

So much will depend on if your son is current and whether you have probate assets at the time of your death. Things like life insurance or IRAs are beneficiary-designated non-probate assets. In such case, these things pass outright to the beneficiary and are free of any claims for things like this loan.

To position yourself, you need to see an estate planning attorney and come up with a plan for yourself and your spouse. You may want to set things up where you will have little to no probate assets. In such case, the lender gets nothing if your son defaults on the loan. You might also want to have a small insurance policy that will cover the loan.

For the future, co-signing is ALWAYS a bad idea. If your son needed a co-signer, it meant either that he had no credit or that he had bad credit. Its better to give the money outright than co-sign as if your son has bad credit, it means he has defaulted on other debts and the likelihood is very good that he eventually will default on this too. Which means that you are left holding the bag and will have to pay.