Husband wants to sell my pre-marriage flat to clear debts

[rdsh]

I’m just asking somewhere objective.

I have a flat I owned before I met DH. It is let out and the income is quite good. I do rely on it to a certain extent because I don’t earn much.

DH however wants to sell it: he wants to clear some debt.

I guess I’m just wondering WWYD … I want to keep it but part of that is perhaps because it benefits me rather than the whole family?

The ending of section 21 eviction notices would make it tempting for me. You may have good tenants now but their situation could change.

What I mean by you sleepwalking into this situation is:

1. You let him control the finances.

2. You have no idea really what the debt is.

3. He is clearly trying to financially abuse you. He wants you to sell your security while he is safely a high earner. (You've said even full-time you'd earn less.)

4. He spends on expensive cars. The cost of which would probably nearly have repaid that debt you have.

5. You're making yourself even more vulnerable by working part-time.

WHY are you allowing yourself to be so disempowered? This is not a healthy marriage. He's lying to you about the debt. He won't let you see the finances. You feel powerless.

You DO have options but you don't want to take any of them. I feel for you. This is abuse you're suffering. BUT the only person that can fight their way out of this is you. Just don't sell the flat! I can see that at some point, you are going to need to live there with your children.

It's your flat not his.
If you have separate finances, the debys need to allocated according to individual responsibility
You really do need a budget and you need to stick to it.
On the basis of 10 months' occupany pa the flat is netting you £4000pa which is all taxable.
Just on 4% interest not taking into account your £1000 interest allowance without tax and ISA tax free status, you wpukd get about £3800 gross on £95k.
Is there any CGT payable on the flat

Rather than a forest trail, why can't you take the children to the park?
£20 a week for discretionary spends - use cash and when it's gone, it's gone.

Get some proper financial advice and use two months' rent to pay for it.

It's not the right time to sell property.

They are married, the flat is now classed as a marital asset.

Why should you be funding everything for the children? Is he the father?

Wow. This is a problem. I can't believe he'd buy a new car without talking to you about it. I wouldn't spend 500 quid without talking to my OH (and I am the only one earning money at the moment, if that makes any difference).

You are either in this together (ie your flat is 'on the table' to clear the debts) or you are not (ie you don't get consulted on big purchases).

I can well understand why you are not keen to sell your flat to clear the family debts when you are a total passenger in this situation.

This situation would not be at all acceptable to me.

If I were you I would use this situation as an opportunity for a reset. Are you any good with excel? Can you build a family finance spreadsheet? Get to understand what is going on and then have an adult discussion about the best way forward. He needs to respect your input.

I still can't believe he bought a new car without discussing it with you. WTF.

The shiney new car is his bill to pay. Not your joint dept.

Don't sell your asset to pay for his toy. Tell him you need to see the dept if you are to actively tackle your part of it. This be seeing the statements, how they have accumulated so you can see in black and white your contributions to it and how to change your habits. Also to take accountability towards paying them off. There is no way £65k is built up from wipes and water.

Is he paying all the bills on the house you are living in? If so your salary from work should be enough to pay for your day to day with the kids. Act like you have sold the flat for a while, so no longer getting the £400 per month income. Use this £400 to pay off your joint dept (not a penny on the car he chose). When the joint dept is gone you will have the income again and will have learnt how to budget so should even be able to save for fun things. Good luck OP

It’s probably a good idea to put the rental money into DHs account but at the moment I really do need it. It’s been a bad year money wise. Some of that is my own fault but some of it is also just bad luck!

I don’t think I am being financially abused but I do think DHs attitude can sometimes be unintentionally a bit toxic. I don’t think DH is fundamentally a bad person or even intentional in having done this. I think we’ve probably both struggled since having the children and there’s been a bit of a ‘just get to the shore’ sort of outlook, so I’ve been trying to get through each day at a time and so has DH and maybe each been thinking that the other has the easier / better life.

But it does need sorting; I just genuinely don’t know how as I can’t talk to him and I don’t even think he actually wants to sell the flat.

Just need to be better with money. it’s hard when you don’t have much of it though!

I think at this stage you need to accept that something has to change. This is not a functioning relationship, if you aren't able to talk about finances or make big decisions together you aren't acting as one.
There's nothing wrong with having separate bank accounts and maybe a joint one for bills to come out of but until you are able to sit down and go through your spending, your debt and come up with an agreement on all of it then nothing will ever work.

And he can think that if he wants, but he can't obligate you to agree or to sell your asset.

I agree that you can't possibly move forward without more transparency, and knowing all your options. It concerned me that you didn't know for sure whether the consolidation would be possible and why, for example. You need this information, yesterday.

Not if there's a legal agreement in relation to ownership/pre-nup.

Also, DH and I have been married for 35 years, my equity was legally safeguarded. Further, our house is in my name for commercial reasons.

First off work out why you both gradually accrued debt. Put some remedial action in place to change habits that caused the debt.
then work out if it’s possible to clear debt by budgeting.
if you don’t solve those two things first then selling the flat is just a short term measure which fails to solve a massive long term issue. And in the long term it’s a terrible idea anyway.

if you are both bad with money then this is your priority. I do not have words strong enough to emphasise how important it is to work out the root cause before taking the easy (but wrong) route of selling a property.

It’s a good idea to act like it is sold. The tenant is actually moving out next month; hopefully a new one will be in as she leaves (it’s never been empty before) but that means April won’t have any rental income as the letting agent will take that as a finders’ fee. Then the flat needs work totalling £750 😩 and so - it’s a lot.

It really doesn't matter where the rental money goes! Or who accrued the debt for that matter.

As a family you are spending more than you earn. As a family you need to find a solution to that. Shuffling money about and saying "that's your bit, that's my bit" will not solve the fundamental problem.

Don't sell the flat, whatever you do. Find a way to pay back the debt out of income.

My DH convinced me it was a good idea to sell his pre-marriage flat about 10 years ago and I regret it massively now. We are no noticeably better off but that flat would have doubled in value and be worth more than our pensions.

On the other hand, one of our closest friends kept her flat when she married. A few years ago her husband passed away to cancer and that flat is now a lifeline for her in terms of additional income and security in that she has an asset to sell or leave to their kids when the time comes.

I can only do what I can do, which is control my end.

If they did split up the flat would be considered a joint asset

But you are a family... honestly, I really think you need to try to work together.

I was typing the post below when you posted this, so missed it at the time, but I just KNEW there would be a car for DH at the back of this - and the one I had in my mind's eye was a Tesla? Am I right?

OP he isn't being fair on you. Your posts are dripping with remorse when this situation is not of your making. The debt is not baby wipes.

No one’s splitting up but if we were DH is welcome to half of it; however I’d obviously have half of the other stuff as well. In the event of a split I would probably keep the flat and the other property and give the family home to DH. But that is by the by.

If you’re a family with two children then surely you have joint goals, joint holidays etc, if the debt is joint and you can’t pay it off or enjoy life you should sell the flat.

You both need to sit down and work out your finances. I would want to know how much debt we had and how is it being paid off.

You need to look at your outgoings.

Do you get child benefit now?

This doesn’t sound like a proper partnership. DH and I have separate finances (unpopular on MN), but we still have plans and make big decisions together. We don’t buy cars without talking it through, and we are aligned on our spending and on our financial goals.

@rdsh how many properties are there?