Difficult living situation IVA 3,5 years left

[aggies87]

Hello Everyone ,

Thank you for reading my post and I appreciate any advise.

I have been married for 12 years and my husband had been always lying to me about financial situation. To cut long story short after suspecting him of having considerable amount of debts and him telling me constant lies throughout the years, it came to light that he accumulated over 45k £ over the years. When we were expecting our second child in 2019 he exposed himself to me and went for IVA agreement and is paying it off over 5 years now.
I have a lot of problems with him and story is very long and he is not even worth mentioning.

My problem is housing. We have been renting 1 bed flat for the last 11 years. It was ok when my older daughter who is 11 now was still small, it was still ok when my second daughter was an infant . However my older daughter grew up so much mentally and physically in the last year and clearly she is becoming teenager and started secondary school now.

We desperately need two bedroom flat as no one has space at home. I am worried about my daughter as she often tells me she is the only one in school who doesn't have her own bedroom and that she lies to her friends that she does etc. She needs it to study and do homework however my husband has bad credit history and no one will rent him a property and I am currently working part time and my earning are not big at all . I have been on council housing waiting list since2017 but I am not priority category. I called council yesterday and their advise was that I can put a curtain in the living room to make another room.

This put me in a terrible mental state than what I already I am . I have been on antidepressants and I feel that my life is miserable. I would like to leave my husband but I also can't due to finances. His mistakes cost whole family but I am mostly sad about my older daughter. I don't know who else to go for support. Is there anything you could kindly advise my that I can do? I would appreciate any advise from you. Thank you so much.

Are you able to increase your hours? Have you checked entitledto.co.uk to see what benefits you would receive as a single parent?

Was an IVA the best option for him? Many are mis-sold and inappropriate for people. Bankruptcy may be a better option if he is struggling to make the payments. Speak to Citizens Advice, Stepchange or National Debtline.

Increasing your income is likely to be the only option here; really - although I’d say that while it’s not ideal at all and I’m sure your daughter feels like the only person without a bedroom, she won’t be. They’ll be others, like her, who either stay quiet or pretend to have their own room. I was one, I shared with my four sisters.

Could you get more hours where you currently work, or a second job? And if you managed that, would you be able to rent somewhere in name?

I’d look at increasing your hours and see if you’d be able to rent somewhere in your own name. You should be able to get help with the rent