BF desperately needs to seperate her finances from her ex h who is currently building up debt at an unbelievable rate - suggestions desperately wanted.

[Wills]

Hi,

A close friend is going through a nightmarsih divorce. After 2 years of desperately trying to make a go at it with her husband she discovered that he was on drugs and had been lying to her about everything. For her its been pure hell and its taken her a while but now she's finally starting to realise that she needs to part from him as fast as possible. She has absolutely no idea how much debt he has built up but she has baliff's on the door step and knows its a matter of time before the house is repossessed and she is homeless. She works two days a week and its not enough to cover the bills/mortgage. He meanwhile has moved out into one of the two flats that they had bought for their pension. She suspects that its a matter of days before all is taken away and wants desperately to disassociate herself from this debt as soon as possible. What can she do. I'm off next week and we plan to work on this together (she can't face it on her own yet). At the moment she's not really got enough to feed the kids so she really is desperate. Things I can think of include:
Telling the child benefits office
Council tax people
What else?

She has an ISA which she will have to cash in but is desperate that this wont go on paying off his debts.

Would report him to CSA but he's not working either. Claimed his business went under because of lack of business but bf now feels that this drug thing has been going on for a long time and feels that she has been such a fool (which she hasn't - you don't sit there waiting for the person you love to be a complete shit to you!).

Need a plan of action and am hoping that you'll all give me some ideas.

Thanks

It's extremely difficult to get power of attorney over someone who is medically unfit to sign it over. To do that you have to go to the court of protection and the procedure is very lengthy and very expensive (costs approx £2500), and even if you went to the court of protection it's possible they may refuse to sign it over. And once you get power of attorney through the court of protection you have to go to them for every little thing and every transaction you make in the person's name you have power over, and every application to the court costs more money. Apart from anything, you'd have to prove that he was medically unfit, or mentally certifyable, and if you're legally seperated this might make things more difficult as you would no longer be considered as his next of kin.

Also, she wouldn't be able to sell the flats/houses without his consent/knowledge, as to sell the house you both have to sign over the deeds.

Agree that its an impossible route although my friend would be the first to shout that he was medically certifiable for taking the damn stuff in the first place!

The problem with the house is that for it to be sold unfortunately BOTH of them have to agree to do it and at the moment he'll do anything that spites her. She's finally broken free of his control and his anger is intense. He's spent the last few years telling how horrible she was and he's lost his ability to do this and is like a spoilt brat in terms of being difficult. He'll go out of his way to be horrible even if it hurts his kids.

Yeah thought it was a long long shot...
Could she get to a womens aid refuge house? They often have access to excellent legal advice and would be a good source of support and keep her safe.

Paths crossed wannabe

Yes but as yet I don't think he'll hit her. Mind you his mother is the mother-in-law from hell and there's no telling what she'd do. At the moment she's in complete denial to his drugs taking.