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Original poster

Husband "lying" about mortgage payments

35 replies

cassierocks · 16/02/2017 16:49

My passive aggressive and now posibley now financially controlling husband is lying about our mortgage payments. I was recently made redundant and asked him once again if we could go through our finances jointly. I have previously paid a set amount by s/o each month into his account to contribute. I have always suspected however that he felt he had more control over our disposable income because he works full time and it would be left in his account at the end of the month. The new spreadsheet clearly states our income and spend for each month and for Jan and Feb he has 742 by the mortgage. However, I have online access to our mortgage and can see he has only paid 104 for each month. I am confused and angry at the same time but don't want to call him out on this as I have been thinking about ending my marriage and this may be the final straw. I want to think a bit more but needed to rant somewhere !!!!

OP posts:

PigletWasPoohsFriend · 16/02/2017 16:52

How much is left on your mortgage? £104 is very low.

happypoobum · 16/02/2017 16:54

Could he have extended the term and switched it to interest only without you knowing?

Gazelda · 16/02/2017 16:54

Might the 104 be the capital part of the mortgage and the remainder of the 742 be interest?

Ikeameatballs · 16/02/2017 16:55

Could he have changed it to interest only? £104 might be the interest component on a mortgage of £724. Worth asking your lender for a statement.

Longdistance · 16/02/2017 17:03

Ring your lender to find out, or get an online statement.

We get a statement through every 6 months with how much has been paid. I don't pay towards the mortgage as Dh earns 5 times as much as me, so sort the dc out, and other bills.

I don't have access to his account, but if we go out for family meals etc he'll pay, evenings out, he'll pay (may buy some drinks, give a tip).

How do your finances work?

Ellisandra · 16/02/2017 17:18

Well how much is your mortgage payment?
Not what it says on a spreadsheet or what has been paid - don't you know how much it is?
If you don't know, do you at least know how much you borrowed and how long ago? It'll give you a rough idea.

My repayment mortgage with £110K left to pay over 22 years is nearly £700. That's at about 4.5% (pretty crap but I have a reason!)
That gives you a ballpark figure though.

Shakey15000 · 16/02/2017 17:23

That sounds very low for a mortgage? Unless you're near the end. I'd ring the lender.

MrTumblesbitch · 16/02/2017 17:31

My ex did this - was taking the mortgage payment off me but had changed the term to interest only (and was pocketing the £600 off me) He said he deserved it because I would only waste it...... he was an abusive arsehole!

Scarydinosaurs · 16/02/2017 17:54

You say 'our mortgage' if the mortgage is in both your names, do you know if he is able to change things without your signature?

How hard would it be for you to get to the bank and work out how long he has been hiding this money?

confuugled1 · 16/02/2017 18:18

Could you request a mortgage statement to see how it's coming along - either do it without him knowing so you can see and if he has only been putting in 100 rather than 700 approx then you will have the evidence to confront him - or at least to keep hidden and investigate further so he doesn't have a chance to hide any of the money from you.

Or when you're next looking at the spreadsheet together, note the amount that's gone on the mortgage, witter on a bit about how long you've had the mortgage and how it seemed ages (or not!) ago that you took it out and what with everything going on you wonder how much you have paid off so far, how much is left, if you need to change the amounts being paid while you are redundant, oh I'll pop into the bank (or whoever provides your mortgage) to get a mortgage statement and we'll see how things stand in case we need to make any adjustments. Oh and it would be sensible to do a check of our electricity and gas suppliers too ... and witter about other financial stuff so that the important getting a statement bit is lost in the middle of lots of chatter...

If he seems particularly perturbed that you want to find this info out then it's time to start worrying!

If you think he is hiding money in other accounts then have a dig and see if you can find out anything further. I suspect that's much more difficult these days when things are online instead of popping regularly through the post unfortunately...

Beebeeeight · 16/02/2017 18:19

Phone you bank

PaterPower · 16/02/2017 18:37

God, I'd think I'd died and gone to heaven if our mortgage was around £100!

I'm paying over £800 pm for 180k on repayment. The best I can find to remortgage to, without extending the term, is about £50 less pm and I have a decent credit score.

I'd definitely be asking where the balance is going - ask (insist!) that you see last year's mortgage statement. He'll be getting one on every anniversary of the mortgage so don't accept anything more than 12 months old.

Alternatively you can call the mortgage company and ask them to send you a fresh one. If the house is jointly owned then you have every right to know what has been paid off to date.

Original poster

cassierocks · 16/02/2017 19:20

I will call the lenders in the morning. The mortgage left is approx 54K and it was already interest only as we have an endowment worth approx 40k which matures next year. The online statement says 742 was paid up to Dec last year, then 104 for Jan and Feb. I thought maybe he had arranged to reduce the payments until I found another job but its the not telling me that has me worried.

OP posts:

fusspot66 · 16/02/2017 19:23

Whatever you do, keep your thoughts to.yourself. He sounds sneaky.

stillnor · 16/02/2017 23:34

Worrying... hopefully there will be a a valid reason for this...

tribpot · 16/02/2017 23:38

742 sounds very high for interest only. I'm paying half that for a mortgage of twice yours.

SleepingTiger · 16/02/2017 23:48

The spreadsheet could say anything he wants it to say. It probably ties up to the bank balance but not to the mortgage balance. If so £638 per month is being diverted to something else under the guise that it is going to the mortgage.

PyongyangKipperbang · 17/02/2017 01:10

If the £742 includes the endowment payments, then has the endowment come to an end? Or has he stopped paying that and is just covering the interest and trousering the rest?

It could well be that he knows you are considering leaving, or is leaving himself, and this is his way of hiding some money.

Jeanne51 · 17/02/2017 01:21

Don't let him get his hands on the endowment. Are other bills being paid?

Lostin3dspace · 17/02/2017 09:47

My ex did this over many years. You are already ahead of me though in that you don't trust him and have access to the finances. I didn't trust him, but had virtually no access and no information. Only during the divorce process did I uncover the extent of his financial abuse. My regrets are:

Not manning up to the fact that I had EVERY RIGHT to know every financial detail of joint finances

Not just finding out for myself. I did not need to ask his permission for anything really, or to make him get the accounts out, I could have just waded in and found out behind the scenes. Had I done so I would have been able to confront him fully, armed with all the evidence.

Not doing the above as soon as he said he was leaving

Not freezing all the accounts any talking to lenders immediately, instead falling for his convincing reasons to leave everything ticking along for more than a year

My ex took money off me by SO every month for mortgage and bills, just like you, but behind the scenes was able to save up tens of thousands secretly since I was covering most living costs. During the divorce process he also took as much credit as he could straight out of the mortgage and trousered it, then lied to the court about it and tried to make out I was responsible for all the debts and he was saving me from a poor credit rating!!!!!

My advice is, if you are anyway thinking of leaving, find out as much as possible without his knowledge anyway, you will have to do this anyway for financial settlement and he will obstruct you and hide money if he is on to you.

InTheRedTent · 17/02/2017 10:42

At 2.5% £104 a month is about right on that balance.

Ellisandra · 17/02/2017 11:13

So is the excel figure the sum of the endowment payment + the interest (which I might think of together as "mortgage") but when you check the statement, only the interest goes to the mortgage company, and the rest is a different DD going to the endowment?
How much of the statement did you check?

MojhitoSparkle · 17/02/2017 15:33

Since your mortgage is interest only you only pay the mortgage lender for the interest. This is all you will see on your mortgage statement. You will also pay a monthly payment for the endowment.

It could be the figure in his spreadsheet is the interest payment + the endowment payment.

But really just ask him. Just ask him to help you to understand where he gets his number. I would suggest phrasing it as you think his number is the interest plus the endowment payment - is your assumption correct?

If you phrase it in a way that indicates you think he is swindling you out of money I think he would be reasonable to get pissed off.

MojhitoSparkle · 17/02/2017 15:36

The endowment is most likely with a life and pension company, it's unlikely to be with the same bank your mortgage is with.

Look for letters/direct debits to some of the main ones:
Standard life
Scottish widows
Prudential
Legal and general
Aviva
Royal London
Etc.

Norland · 17/02/2017 15:50

If you're on a variable-rate tracker, type mortgage, where the tracker is 2% above the Bank of England base rate - currently 0.25% - then 2.25% of £54,000 would be £101.25 per month.

Difficult to see how an endowment policy would cost £640 per month.

And if your mortgage interest payments were rounded up to equal 12 x monthly payment (£104) that would = £1,248 per annum; so the £742 wouldn't even reflect a year's worth of interest.

However if you subtract the £742 from the £1,248, that leaves £506, which is £42.17 per month for an endowment policy, which for a payout of £40,000 seems far more likely.

Don't know if this is the answer but given the £742 was in December, it could reflect a year-end mortgage/endowment statement.

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