My friend is not from the UK and her Irish husband has recently left her and their child. Since he left, she’s discovered that he has a string of unpaid debts.
He is an assistant head teacher at a secondary school, so earns a good wage. She works part time, and even if she was full time she would earn about 50% of his salary. He bought their shared ownership house when she returned to Japan during maternity leave, she’s recently realised that it’s in his name only. They had a fairly traditional Japanese financial set up - he paid the mortgage and bills, she’d pay for repairs to the house plus holidays, stuff for their kid.
He left in September not telling her he was going, and finally asked for a divorce in November. Since then, a series of letters have come to the house from their mortgage provider about non payments. He’s now received a court order for repossession. He says that it’s a mistake. However, as her name isn’t on the mortgage she can’t do much.
Now there’s a letter from the council threatening bailiffs as he hasn’t paid the council tax and is £6k in arrears. Her name isn’t on the council tax, but from the research we’ve done, it seems she’s liable too as she lives in the house. The council won’t give much information as her name isn’t on the bill.
She has contacted him, he says he’ll sort it, but she doesn’t really trust him. He also has a personal debt. Their family credit card has been blocked, although there was no issue with her credit card. He’s been totally unreliable- barely contacts their child (he was a great dad before) and seems to have begun a new relationship.
Can anyone advise about what decisions the courts are likely to make in terms of repossession with a primary aged child? How should she proceed in terms of contacting the council about that debt? They don’t have any joint bank accounts, her name isn’t on the mortgage, so I don’t think she’s liable for his debt apart from the council tax but she’s worried about being made homeless.
I’m doing my best to help her as she doesn’t really understand the system in this country. It seems this may be a case of economic abuse. She’s been having panic attacks and I’m pretty worried about her mental health, partly due to the divorce, but I think this debt is even more stressful.