Some ex's are really nasty when you split up

It seems he might not be getting away with it - it could be his turn to be kept awake at night.

My friend met with a solicitor today. She was informed that technically she is responsible for any debts in joint names which she signed her agreement to. However, she's not responsible for anything that's just in joint names, & can also fight anything her ex may have taken out using her address after he moved out, because she has the document he signed confirming his last day in the property. Thank goodness she's got that. She can also prove that all the household bills that were in shared/his name were changed to her name only, plus she hasn't touched the joint bank account once since the week he left, which backs up her story that they haven't had shared finances since the relationship ended. She's got to see a specialist practitioner of some kind later this week, & it's going to take a good while to sort out, but it seems that the OR won't be interested in penalising her for what he's done if she can prove she wasn't party to it. They'll need to see her bank statements etc, but if they show the same level of income & expenditure since he left then things will look much better for her. She's one of those people who keeps all her statements, receipts etc, so things might not be so bad after all. :j

Also, his dad seems to be getting madder about this by the minute. He's spoken to other family members about it, & it seems her ex owes other people money too including his dad, who will now lose out because of his BR - they didn't even know about it until the dad told them he'd been told. His dad has insisted that his son give him a copy of the SOA he submitted - he wants to see what debts, creditors & assets have been listed. If he won't give it voluntarily, he'll ask the OR for it or get a solicitor to make him because as a creditor he's an interested party. He's also said they must all meet up at some point this week to properly discuss what's happened. It seems that his dad has had enough of his son's behaviour (it goes back years apparently). He's told her that he's going to see what his son has to say for himself, & then put it to him that he tells the OR that the debts are his & his alone, leaving him open to a BRO for misinformation but hopefully clearing my friend of any liability (or at least lessening the chance) for the debts. If he won't play ball, his dad has said that she should find out how much she'll be liable for after seeing the solicitor & the specialist (they'll have to look at the SOA, get loads of statements etc), then he'll see what he can do to get it cleared. There's a trust fund from a grand-aunt that his dad has control over (I bet Sonny Jim didn't tell the OR about that), which has a final instalment (over £100k) to pay out at his 40th birthday. His dad doesn't know the ins & outs of the law on it, but he thinks that he should be allowed to pay it from that money, leaving his son to get the balance on the due date.

His son is going to freak when he hears all this. Good.

Too right he does. The solicitor said that the fact his father is prepared to speak up on her side & is also one of many creditors will work in her favour. If the OR wants to impose an IVA the creditors need to agree on it, & with the way things are already they're unlikely to unless other terms (longer BR are also imposed). So it would be in the son's interest to change his BR aplication if he's allowed to & take responsibility for the debts that are his instead of trying to pass them on to someone else. Either way, he's going to be in trouble if/when the OR hears about the money from the trust fund - he was obviously hoping to keep that for himself (his 40th birthday is at the end of May), but now he won't be able to. Serves him right.

My friend's got to get the flat sorted out though, as the solicitor quite rightly said property should never be left to an informal arrangement. He said there's a good chance that she might have to buy out her ex's interest in the property, but she's need to sort that out once she knows how much the other debts are. If the OR accepts that she isn't responsible for the majority of the debts, he can't make her homeless by forcing her to sell a property that she half owns in order to get a share for the major debtor. If the OR says she is equally responsible for the debts, he needs to be able to prove that, which he can't. The fact that her ex wasn't forcing her to sell & she was paying the mortgage means that he can't expect to get the full value for the property divided by two, but what half the property would be worth if only half was up for sale. She's got to get someone to look into it in more detail, but the impression she got was that if she could come to an agreement with the OR on a price they'd go for that & put the money towards settling the debts with the creditors, rather than force her to sell, risk not getting a decent price for it & have to give her half the money. She'd have to get an additional loan to do it, but she says she'd rather do that & own the flat outright than have to sell it & face maybe not getting something as nice, but she'll see what amounts they present her with & work from there.

Her ex has been really stupid. His dad says that if he'd told him about his debts sooner & had asked if there was a way to get to the trust fund money earlier, he wouldn't have given the money to him, but would have arranged for the debts to be settled with the creditors from it once the eligible date had passed. The son has played it crafty, & now stands to not only have a lengthy BRO but also end up with a much smaller trust fund payment than he expected. If he owes more than the trust fund money, he'll end up with nothing at all. :eek: That will teach him to do something so horrible to someone.