Cuckoo in the nest...! Legal help needed.....

[hypermum1]

Hi, does anyone know the legal position for the following:
An immigrant marries a British woman, they have a child. He is foul, treats her terribly and abuses her children from a previous relationship, physically and mentally. If she kicks him out of the house, where does she stand legally? The house has a mortgage and is in her name. All of the bills are in her name. He does not work and has never paid a penny towards any of the bills/mortgage etc. They have been together for around 18 months. As they are married, is he automatically entitled to half of everything or, if she can demonstrate and evidence he has paid nothing towards any mortgage or bills since moving in, does this give her some rights? He has also wracked up a whole load of credit card debt, does this become her debt if they separate? Any help greatly appreciated.

I am not a lawyer, purely layperson experience.
When you say 'immigrant', what's his immigration status? If they've been married less than two years and vile man is from outside the eu, I would imagine that he doesn't have indefinite leave to remain. If so, a speedy divorce should solve this problem.
Best wishes to whoever this is.

Hmmm, yes Nigeria. Its very complicated and has totally split the family as she can see no wrong in him, despite the fact that he has pinned her children up against the wall threatening to "kick their f&*^%(g heads in" and poured washing up liquid in to their fish tank, killing the fish as a "sacrifice for their disrespect towards him". He refers to her family as white trash and won't let her see them.

I had somewhere in the back of my mind some thought that if she can evidence he has paid nothing towards the bills, she had some legal ground to deny him rights to half of everything.......

Jesus!
But if he's that bad, then for the sake of the children he's got to go, regardless of the house rights.

Oh trust me, thats the tip of the iceberg! He has also threatened my husband and father in law with a knife and all sorts of other lovely things! BUT, like I say, he has ensured she has severed all ties with her family, manipulated her and put her down so much that I am pretty sure she is no longer thinking clearly. In her eyes, he is the perfect husband and can do no wrong. We are very concerned about the children, but social services have done nothing, and the police hands are tied. so its a case of sit back and be supportive where we can and hope and prey she sees sense before something awful happens. When she does see sense, he is not going to go without a fight, hence the legal question!

Sounds like someone should be putting a call in to social services if the children are at risk of physical or emotional harm.

She could get an occupation order to force him to leave the house, and then divorce him. He's unlikely to get much from the house in any settlement given the length of the marriage.

But it sounds as though she doesn't want him to leave the house. She thinks he's the bee's knees.

bee's knees??!!
Oh God, I've turned into my mother!

Social services were involved but the mother is very plausible. She has a respected job and knows a lot of the social care team. She paints a very good picture of family bliss to the outside world.She has attempted suicide twice before so there is a lot of pressure on the children not to "upset" her. She has dismissed the whole situation as the rest of the family being racists. Which we are not. This is NOT a race issue. None of us would care if he was sky blue pink with spots on so long as he looked after her and her children properly. The whole thing is very sad.

You're asking for advice on a lot of areas of law here.

Regarding immigration, you need to give us more information. Do you know if he's here on a spousal visa? The fact that he's Nigerian doesn't necessarily mean that's the case. How long have they been married and how long has he been in the country? If he's got ILR, he'll keep it even if they separate. If he's on a spousal visa, he won't be able to apply for ILR as a spouse if they're not still together. But that wouldn't stop him being able to apply under other criteria. If they have children and he has a relationship with them and sees them regularly, even in the event of a split he'd have a decent argument under Article 8 ECHR (disclaimer- the Immigration Rules changed a lot back in July, and I was on maternity leave and haven't gone back since so am slightly out of the loop). But you say 'her' children- are they his too?

Regarding debts, these belong only to the individual unless they were joint. Being married to someone doesn't mean you have responsibility for their debts. If the credit cards are in his name only and she never agreed to take any responsibility for the debt or let him secure anything against her assets, I can't see how she'd be liable.

Regarding division of assets, 50 50 is the starting point but it's very complex. The fact that someone hasn't financially contributed doesn't mean they won't get anything. For example, is he providing the childcare that allows her to earn the income to pay the bills? There isn't a one sentence answer to this, iyswim.