To tell DP he cannot continue to be self employed I've had enough!

[EnoughIsEnough123]

Back story - DP is a tradesman, earned a healthy living for 15 years until the guy who regularly supplied him with work retired. For the last 4 years he's had to go it alone and it's been a nightmare. Work has been patchy, income unstable and unreliable. He had a good year two years ago until the guy he was working for also retired. He seems to be very good at what he does and always gets good feedback and recommendations but (and this will probably surprise a lot of people) but despite doing a good job people often try to shirk paying at then end or find fault in the work to reduce what they pay.

We have an 18 month old and a newborn and I've just discovered he's got £14k worth of debt which I knew nothing about. The debt has accumulated from (another) rough couple of years with unreliable work and income. He hasn't been paying his bank loan and credit cards and has been hiding it from me. We rent, supposed to be saving for a home, so we don't have any assets.

I'm so upset and so angry that he's allowed things to get this bad. I've asked him repeatedly to get a job, any job, that pays him a set regular wage but he says he's good at what he does. That's not the issue the issue is he isn't earning any money!!! I work full time and am currently on maternity leave. I've agreed to go back to work full time after just 3 months maternity leave because we need the money. I'm so fed up of holding everything together, I feel like the only responsible one. I will be back at work full time with a 3 month old and a 19 month old!

We've had a chat this morning which resulted in the usual tears (his) and him telling me he's failing us and he feels sorry for me and he's useless etc.... I've told him we don't have time for him to feel sorry for himself we need solutions and if he feels mentally unwell he needs to get help. I grew up with a dad with ongoing depression and anxiety, we never had any money, as kids we knew they struggled to pay bills etc and I won't have that upbringing for my children.

Has anyone been in a similar situation?

I hate to be that person, but does he actually have a gambling problem?

Task rabbit sounds like a good idea, as does bookkeeper service. And yes to a website/ Facebook local etc.

In reply to your original question OP, no YANBU to tell him he can't be self-employed. We'd all like to organise our own days, not have to answer to anyone etc. But we're not all cut out to be self-employed.
I'd be pushing for him to be an employee or with an agency, at least for a while. It will take the pressure off you massively.
My DH has now got a job which he previously viewed as somewhere plumbers go to die... And its the best thing he ever did. Yes he could earn more elsewhere. But the job security and regular wage is worth it.

What was the working relationship like between your H and the men who retired? Could it be that the things he struggles with now are the very things he never was responsible for in the past. Ex was keen about becoming a contractor so he could earn the big bucks but I had to be blunt and point out that his administration was a mess and if it wasn't for HR chasing him about time sheets and expenses, he would never get paid.

First things first, you really need to know how much debt he's in and you need to let him know that there's no other option but to find salaried employment before you end up homeless and or ill. Gaining salaried employement is now a deal breaker and if he won't, then he needs to be drain on someone else's finances.

You need to get tough before his pride ruins you.

I know a very skilled tradesman, round here he is one of the best and most talented in his field. Sadly, he's a bit of a brat too, so doesn't get quite as much work as he needs.

So his wife - disabled, unable to work ft, unemployed for years due to her illness so now has some work way below her ability and paid a pittance - keeps them going with her DLA and pt job. He spends most of his time complaining that he has no money, whatever you try to talk to him about - holiday, car, extra activities, he will respond with something like "you're lucky! I can't afford a holiday, we couldn't even go camping this year" or similar. I always think, whenever I hear him whinging on about how he can't do this, or afford that, that he should just shut the fuck up and get a job and stop living off his poor disabled wife.

If you live close to London, how about Pimlico Plumbers? (who also do carpentry, electrician etc). I'd imagine it's pretty good money.
If he carries on like this, I also agree on bookkeeper etc. I've also seen tradesmen using apps which immediately bill at the end of the job, integrate with the online accounts system etc.

YY Pimlico Plumbers have a good reputation. I believe that they are, by repute, both expensive for the customer, and reliable.

He's a grown man not a boy, neither is he a young man just starting out. Im pretty sure he is well aware of work options open to him. & he'd be exploring them all pretty sharpish if he didn't have OP and her money to fall back on

YY Pimlico Plumbers have a good reputation. I believe that they are, by repute, both expensive for the customer, and reliable.

I think that they have a poor reputation as an employer-well they ar not an employer. Their staff are self employed not employees and they lost a legal case. What they were doing is at best tax avoidance. .

www.hudsoncontract.co.uk/news-resources/2016/mar/pimlico-plumbers-self-employment-contracts-spring-a-leak/

Excuse the daily mail (as you can see by my user name I am an avid reader)

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3456022/Tory-backing-plumbing-firm-rich-famous-avoided-paying-tax-used-case-Stringfellow-s-lapdancer-defence-employment-tribunal.html

If he's not making enough money to live on, it's not his job - it's his hobby. Tell him to get a real job and he can do his hobby in his own time.

Dailymailisacrapnewspaper Ah. I stand corrected. Apologies. If he is not getting on well SE then going SE "for" someone else is not going to improve the situation.

As a guide, he charges £400 per day plus materials. It sounds a lot but he can't work every day due to lulls in work, hols, having to do quotes and admin etc. He takes home £1700 per month on that rate.

To me that doesn't add up. How many days is he working? Even if he only works 15 chargable days a month that's a gross income of £6000 a month.
If he is only bringing home £1700 a month then by my calculations he is working 5 days a month ( allowing for tax)

How long after the client said they had no more money did it take your dp to issue a demand and then a small claims.

A friend also had a husband who was a carpenter who would do absolutely beautiful work but found it embarrassing to insist on payment.
They ended up nearly bankrupt. It was only when she herself got involved and took over his books and started issuing demands and small claims and at one point got the bailiffs involved did they get back on their feet.
I think he thought his clients were friends where as she saw them as taking the roof from over her child's head.
Now he works doing what he does best which is producing amazing bespoke items . He does the work and she does the issuing of bills and chasing for payment.
She works full time but because they are now getting paid for his work she no longer is doing the evening and weekend work and they are managing much better.

I know thanks a daft question, but are all his qualifications up to date? At the very least he needs a CSCS card for his trade to work on a construction sure. Without one, he's limiting himself to developers who dabble more on the periphery of H&S law, quite possible unreliable in other ways, like paying.

As a guide, he charges £400 per day plus materials. It sounds a lot but he can't work every day due to lulls in work, hols, having to do quotes and admin etc. He takes home £1700 per month on that rate.

£400 a day for a carpenter??? Plus materials?

That's £96,000 annual gross income assuming a 48 week working year. He's a fucking rip off merchant!

Yanbu at all. Been there, done that, got the threadbare tear stained t shirt. Some people are good at being self employed, they can run the business as well as do the actual job. Dh is not and it sounds like your Dh isn't either. I am fine at the administration side but apart from not wanting to be dh's unpaid secretary alongside my own job and everything else, I am no good at promotion and insisting on payment and all the other things that you need skills in to run a business. So I insisted he went back to employment, any employment, whether he liked it it not, because we needed a guaranteed income. Your dh needs to pull his head out and get a job. Hopefully doing more or less what he does now, just working for someone else rather than himself- but if he can't find that work he needs to find something else. My dh knows that if he ever chooses to put our family through that stress and uncertainty and poverty again we're done. Adversity I can cope with when it just happens and wasn't really avoidable, but not someone making a choice to do something with such negative consequences and expecting me and the dc to suffer as a result.

So the OP is supposed to look after the kids, work FT, do her husband's book and chase up his invoices, devise solutions to his work problems, chivvy him to the GP and pay the £14k worth of debt he ran up? Oh, mustn't berate the poor dear, either, he has confidence issues.

I can't believe how cavalier people are about FOURTEEN THOUSAND POUNDS of debt he is not paying on when they are renting, too (imagine that'll make passing credit checks for places to live interesting).

I'm glad you are not married to him, OP, or that debt would also be legally yours.

the going rate where I live for a tradesman is £120-£150 per day, wish My Dh could get £400!

Something is going wrong. Reliable tradespeople are in very, very short supply. I want a carpentry job doing, had a carpenter round to show him and get a quote he came round, looked at the job and I never heard from him again . The job isn't done and tbh I'd rather it never got done because I can't find anyone reliable! I'll just live with it how it is.

Would it be a possibility for him to work for a kitchen fitting company or something like that, so he is employed?

Hockey dude - reliable customers are also in short supply, MY DH has visited to quote for two customers recently and decided not to quote because he considered them very rude and unlikely to settle their bills!

I'm glad you are not married to him, OP, or that debt would also be legally yours.

No it wouldn't! Not in England and Wales anyway. That's a misconception. Spouses do not have liability for the debts of the other spouse. They can be affected if they own property jointly, because the debtor spouse's share may be fair game for the creditors regardless of the impact on the non-debtor spouse. But that would also be true if they owned property together and weren't married.

I agree it's for the best they're not married though...