Husband "lying" about mortgage payments

[cassierocks]

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 !!!!

[Ellisandra]

Well, only he can tell you that.

[stillnor]

Did he come clean OP?

[Mix56]

Tell him as you have over paid, the next 4 months or so, have already been paid. so he can take care of it, where is he putting this money, in his private bank account?

[cassierocks]

Thanks all for your responses, especially Lostin3dspace who repeated my point about already having access to the mortgage statement so can see what has or hasn't been paid. Lenders confirmed our payments dropped to £104 per month after interest rates fell last Sep. The payments before then were actually 342 but we were overpaying 742 because we could afford to. The issue is that he is a) not passing on information about changes, b) still claiming 742 as an expense in our finances but only paying 104 (the endowment and life insurance payments are separate) So what is he doing with the £600 ?

[WankersHacksandThieves]

Did you have redundancy cover on the mortgage that he is claiming in order to reduce the payments while you are out of work?

So, effectively you are paying a reduced amount for a set period?

My old mortgage allowed me to take a payment holiday, this may be similar since you aren't working.

[Norland]

That's very true Lostin3dspace

I had to re-read the OP's post at 19:42 :-

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.

I'd thought it was the spreadsheet figures, as per original post. The £742 online statement doesn't make sense as a standalone figure as part of the mortgage, given BoE base rate fell 0.25% at one point in 2016, from 0.5%

[Lostin3dspace]

See, although the explanations above about interest only mortgages and endowment premiums make sense, the OP says that the £742 was being paid into the actual mortgage until December. Because she could see from the online mortgage statements. So he has done something without informing her. It may not be trousering her cash, but something has changed.

[LightastheBreeze]

We have an interest only mortgage which is similar and endowment.
Mortgage iirc is about £130 a month and endowment for £50k is about £130 a month

[littlewoollypervert]

Sorry meant to expand further on the endowment - if it is intended to pay off the mortgage next year, it will have to be aiming for a value of £54K next year.

Current value £40K.
12 mths premiums at £638 per month = £7656
Growth on the £40K @5% = £2000

£40K + £7656 + £2000 = £49,656 - a relatively small shortfall on an endowment.

Obviously this assumes there are only 12 months to go - if the maturity date is December 2018 then there could be 22 months so the value may be higher by then.

[littlewoollypervert]

Looks like the £104 is the interest on the mortgage only.

If the endowment is due to pay off the capital next year, and is worth £40K now, then £638 (£742 - £104) could be the endowment premium - looks about right.

However check that your name is on the endowment policy as well as his - if it isn't assigned to the bank, and is in his name only, he could encash it without your permission and take the funds. Then you'd have nothing to pay off the mortgage with...

[Norland]

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.

[MojhitoSparkle]

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.

[MojhitoSparkle]

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.

[Ellisandra]

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?

[InTheRedTent]

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

[Lostin3dspace]

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.

[Jeanne51]

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

[PyongyangKipperbang]

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.

[SleepingTiger]

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.

[tribpot]

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

[stillnor]

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

[fusspot66]

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

[cassierocks]

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.

[PaterPower]

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.

[Beebeeeight]

Phone you bank