To get my own car?

[DfanjoUnchained]

H really wants to get a new car together, as in hire purchase whereby both our names would be on it. I have my own (old, battered) car at the moment and would part-exchange it in.

Aibu in wanting to have my own car in my name? I feel like I'm losing my independence and if anything were to happen I would be left without a car with a ds. I've always had my own car.

I don't know how to tell him though.

Whoknows - it would be considered a marital liability as it would be a loan with a committed period.

If a car is essential for your job/school runs with DS and residency was with you, the courts would presumably take it into account in terms of the joint finances and maintenance arrangements.
If you "hand back" a car early you will not receive any value for your cars trade-in value or your husbands lump sum. They will be sunk costs and you will be carless. It depends on the finance agreement but in most cases, at the end of the 2/3/4 yrs you can hand back the car and walk away, buy it outright with a lump sum for the remainder owed or hand back the car,entering into a new agreement usually with a nice discount but you will need another lump sum to make the repayments lower if required.
Any upfront funds provided by you and DH will be sunk cost - the amount you hand over will simply make the monthly repayments more manageable.

Just tell him that you love your car and you're not comfortable taking on the debt as a family unless you could manage it on your own salary [if he were to lose his job etc]. You'd rather save up for a larger deposit for a better car in due course. If he wants to swank around in something fancier on the rare occasions he drives then he can use a Zipcar type service.

It doesn't sound like you two actually need two cars so you need to get over the idea of "sharing" your car. You already share a life, bed, a mortgage [?], and a child [?] together.

If you're married it doesn't matter which name the car is in, it will be considered a marital asset or liability depending on whether or not money is owed and divided up with the rest of the property. Plus you can only have one name on a logbook and one name on a finance agreement.

If it's an HP purchase, it belongs to the company until the final payment is made. If there are any issues with defaulting on payments, the car can be claimed and you can still be chased up on payments. Other credit agreements mean the owner is an owner.

It doesn't sound worth doing.