DH kept taking money out of mortgage for more than seven years

[Bloom12]

My DH has been taking out money from mortgage. He got this tracker flexible mortgage which allows to withdraw funds. He never told me about it. He is an established GP working seven sessions as GP partner and than appraisers and out of hour as well. We sent our two kids to a relatively cheap private school until year 3, year 1. All that time he shouted at me for this then he took them off from private and they started going to public school and still they are going there.
To give you full picture, I can explain to you that our house is broken he doesn't want to improve it, we both have really old cars. When we bought them cheap as well. We eat and wear average. Usually, we shop from Tesco and ethnic shops BUT in 2014 he started buying Aldi's value products which he stopped in last summer on our son's request.
Now when I found out that he has been taking money out of the mortgage he is claiming that I have been spending a lot and I put him in debt. NB: he gave me credit card for period Oct 2011 until l about March 2014 and then around December this year until now. I am living with him since Feb 2005 and rest of time whenever I asked him for money for house keeping he fought with me and gave me ten or twenty pounds only.
Please folks want to know what to do and expect.

He's doing six sessions, appraisals and out of hours shifts, he will be earning enough for them to be comfortable, unless money is being syphoned off for something else.

He's also working a lot of hours and is probably very stressed.

I get your concerns, but could it be something as simple as stashing all his spare cash in the mortgage to offset it (better effective return than a savings account) between twice annual payments to HMRC as self-employed.

divegirl He's withdrawing money from the mortgage account as I understood it, basically adding to what's owed on the house, not paying it off.

If he's got some big financial strategy he needs to be sharing it with his wife.

A GP partner may actually not be earning that much at all... they are effectively running a business so unlike salaried GPs, who have a fixed income, a GP partner may earn considerably less some years if the practice has had a lot of debts to cover.

Another possibility related to his job is that if hes had a claim made against him his indemnity insurance may now be very very expensive (jumped from around 5000 to over 20000 a year) and if this happened unexpectedly I can see how this could result in him having to withdraw money from the mortgage to cover it.

Obviously there are lots of other possibilities too.

for the life of me I am always surprised when women depend totally on their husbands financially and 'ask' for money. even if the husband is the only earner to be totally in the dark about finances is not a good strategy.

I agree with boffinmum - get your own bank account etc

I also agree with someone else up the thread who said we don't know enough yet to jump at any type of 'abuse' allegation

I also read the OP and instantly thought gambling problem. Does he have a close friend or family member that you could talk to so they could talk to them or perhaps they even know if he gambles? Can you get the facility changed so that he can't withdraw money from the mortgage without both of you signing? It is possible to insist on double signatures on some things with a bank account.

OP.

I agree with Barbara that the DH here doesn't earn as much as people think he does. On the income described, no way would you be able to afford 2 children in private school, a big mortgage, fancy holidays and so on.

Partner income has been flat or falling for years, he will be paying £10K or more (much more if he is doing out of hours work) in defence subs, he has to pay the employers contribution of his pension too as well as his own.

So what is left is smaller than you might think and doesn't cover the lifestyle doctors used to have in the 60s and 70s. If you add in him sending money back home, it's rapidly coming up short.

However fundamentally it doesn't sound like you have an equal marriage. You don't know what the finances really are, he isn't sharing, you both have different expectations of lifestyle, he's now being a git but if he didn't properly tell you how much there was to spend it isn't surprising that you didn't stick to a budget.

You need to see if he will fully share the state of finances so you can both act as equal partners addressing this.

Is she American as she uses "public schools" when most of us say state schools but then says her husband is a GP which is English phrase so I am not sure.
I am afraid my first question is why is she not a GP and earn her own money? That tends to solve most problems when women work full time - lesson for your daughters never go part time or give up work and in your teens pick something very high paid as your aim not something arty where you will earn a pittance.

Leaving that aside, in the UK you would read the terms of the mortgage as some will require signatures of both in the couple and also a separate solicitor for the other spouse who must verify the advice given but I am not sure if some tracker loans are different. It would be very unfair if they were.

As to what he is doing well second family or hidden additional child or gambling habit are possibles. Check if he is an LLP or limited company in his practice in which case you can view the accounts free on line at companieshouse beta. Let me look up my GP... pause...ah in our case it is 4 partners so not a limited company and not an LLP, no searches possible at companies house. We had total transparency in our marriage and I did both our tax returns. If you do his tax return for him - yes women have brains enough to do this all the time and plenty out earn their husbands - then look at the tax return to see what his net income after tax is. Is he English? Some cultures living in the UK are very sexist towards women and keep them down.

People wondering about "public school", that's what state schools are called in Scotland (which does also have several public schools in the English sense - context usually helps!).

Laura - you can't hold a GMS contract as a LLP. That's one of the things that puts young doctors off partnership - the fact that, if it all goes tits up, you are personally liable.

Just to clear up the mortgage confusion.
We have an offset tracker mortgage with a facility of X, this is also our current account. It's kind of like a large overdraft. As long as we don't exceed X we can both spend what we want without consulting eachother just like an ordinary bank account.

Came on to say exactly what Hoppingreen said. We had exact same thing until it was paid off 2 years ago. The op wouldn't have needed to sign anything or even be made aware of what her dh had been doing. I'm curious as to how she suddenly found out.

OP hasn't actually said they've got a big mortgage. It might be a house he bought in 2001 in the north east. The cost of housing is so varied, as is the cost of private education really (my GPs 2 kids go to a cheapish private school, I know because I recognised the uniform from the photos on his desk!).

Debts, Overseas family, OW, Gambling, Financial abuse, all possible

So the trackertype of loan seems correct too - never take one out then unless you trust your spouse as 50% of marriages fail.

She needs to gather all the financial information she can about the family, ideally get a full time job and gain some financial independence I suspect.

(Thanks. I didn't know that about GPs not being allowed to be LLPs or limited companies. I have advised a lot of people like dentists and vets who are LLPs so assumed GPs could be the same. I thought I was one of the only lawyers who practise as a sole trader with all the risk that entails..... sounds like GPs practise in the same way when alone or in partnership. Hopefully we all have insurance although that is not a cure all.)

We have exactly the same tracker mortgage and if it is the same mortgage as tracker suggests the interest rate is super low. We have a 4 bed detached within the M25 and out mortgage is less than 1/2 of what you would pay rent for a flat share.

My first thoughts were gambling and my second thought was second or third family.
After ds was born my brain went and I couldn't remember how to make a cup of coffee let alone deal with finances or pay people. Dp took over them and within 1 year managed to add £1200 per month on our monthly outgoings. A long hard look at where he is spending the money is definitely what is needed.

It's like a whole thread of Mystic Meg.

Laura812, they must have very costly indemnity insurance in order to practice. Whilst you can technically set up a GP as a limited co it causes huge problems with superannuation and cannot hold a gms or pms nhs contract so limited companies are only used for private practice.

Recent tax changes mean that a lot of gps have been hit hard by the pension savings tax charge. Whilst it is possible to get this deducted from your pension pot directly, there are strict time lines in place and the information required is difficult to obtain.

He wouldn't be the first GP I've heard of to remortgage his house to cover tax liabilities.

However, that's by the by - what is clear is that he is being financially abusive towards you. You need to have a clear view of what is going on within the household finances and if he continues being secretive and blaming you then you need to reconsider your relationship.

Come back, Bloom12 , and maybe get this moved to the Relationships board rather than AIBU which has given you a bit of a rough ride. There are loads of people here who will help you.

Agreed about moving the thread to Relationships - away from this car crash!

I don't think constructive advice about the law etc is a car crash. People saying poor you etc is never too helpful for people. However doctors and lawyers on here telling her what to do, practical stuff about mortgages, tax, law are actually more helpful in reality than someone patting her on the back and sayig poor you.

Yep, I'm trying to be constructive and point out that there are many reasons why OP's DH may have been withdrawing the money. He might have been spending it on coke and hookers, but equally he may have needed to put that money back into his business (which is what a GP partnership is - a small business, and often one which is struggling financially). OP needs to get more information from her husband. However, I agree that the key issue is that her relationship itself doesn't sound healthy, whether or not her DH has just been putting cash back into the practice.