Husband in debt

hulagirl79

Hi
I am looking for some advice on my current situation.
I have been married for 4 1/2 years. Me 30 husband 38.
We bought our house together nearly four years ago, in both our names.
We have seperate accounts, which we get paid into and a joint account that household bills and mortgage comes out of.
He earns over £1500 per month take home more than me, so we split the bills 70/30.
I have a credit card which has £4000 on it which i am paying off as much as i can afford per month [ i am working at the weekends to do this as quick as possible]
REcently[since xmas] my husband has told me he has no money, i assumed he meant because of christmas.
I found out on friday that he has £30,000 debt. £20,000 on credit cards and £10,000 car loan.

Now i knew about the car loan and i also knew he had 1 credit card but did not realise he had this amount of debt. Now because of this debt his credit score is ruined, he has missed payments. Mine is still ok as all the debt is in his name.
We are going to sit down on sunday and discuss a plan of action.

My idea is that for the next year we make a budget and he sticks to that. The money goes into the joint account as usual and he has £100 per month play money but everything else he earns goes on paying off the debt [from rough figures i have worked out he can pay off about £15-16 grand in that year.]

Now his option is to get a secured loan on the house [as he cant get one otherwise] i am not keen on this for a few reasons
1- it will be both our debts.
2-i am worried we could lose our home.
Am i being selfish, i realise we are married and the vows we made to each other but this debt is something he made on his own, has nothing to show for it and kept it a secret from me.
Is my plan workable and fair.
Any other options would be welcome.

Thank you

DVardysShadow

Suggest you deal with the relationship bit here, but you take specifics about the debt to the DebtFreeWannabe section. They will advise strongly against putting it on the mrtgage, because apparently that leaves the credit cards free for racking up even more debt.

I take it you take home £1125 whereas he takes home £2625. If you are closer than that, then perhaps you should rebalance the finances.

It is in his interests not to 'contaminate' your credit record with his debt - you may be advised to get rid of shared financial products - eg the joint bank account. But that doesn't mean necessarily walking away from the debt yourself. If you use the car or have benefitted from the debt, you could consider chipping in to paying it down.

hulagirl79

Thanks for your advice
YOu are nearly spot on with the finances, how much we take home. I take home £1225. He takes home £2800.
I dont use the car it is a sports car very fast and i am scared i will crash it, [i have a tiny little fiesta]
I have not benifited from the debt at all, unless my christmas present went on there, but i have never asked for any moneyor anything he would have needed to put on it.
He has about £1800 left each month for debt repayments and general living expenses [not including the bills or mortgage. I would like to know where that money is going if it is not on paying off debts.

Aruna

From experience, it is not easy to teach an old dog new tricks.
If he is financially irresponsible then it will take a lot of will power on his part to stick to the plan. I almost had my OH trick me into reopening a joint account with him, only to realise that he was after cleaning up his credit file/or contaminating mine, whichever way it works - all because he needed himself to be in a position to lay his hands on more credit (but in both our names).

kegg_2

I personally wouldn't allow him to put it on the mortgage and believe your plan of action would be much better for both of you as he needs to take responsibility for his debts or you could well find yourself in the same position in a few years time.

DVardysShadow

hulagirl79 wrote: »

Thanks for your advice
YOu are nearly spot on with the finances, how much we take home. I take home £1225. He takes home £2800.
I dont use the car it is a sports car very fast and i am scared i will crash it, [i have a tiny little fiesta]
I have not benifited from the debt at all, unless my christmas present went on there, but i have never asked for any moneyor anything he would have needed to put on it.
He has about £1800 left each month for debt repayments and general living expenses [not including the bills or mortgage. I would like to know where that money is going if it is not on paying off debts.

Gambling. He couldn't drink it.

With £1800 surplus, he could have paid off the car loan in 6 months.

Greener_Grass

What on earth has he spent all that money on? It sounds like he has plenty left over after paying bills anyway

floss2

Greener_Grass wrote: »

What on earth has he spent all that money on? It sounds like he has plenty left over after paying bills anyway

I would guess that DVardysShadow is reasonably accurate.

If that is the case, has your OH admitted that he has a problem? I fear that until he does & seeks help for it himself, this may be a cyclical thing.

Kazipoo

When I first got married, I had no debt, in fact, very good credit, and presumed that the hubby was the same. He never told me about any bills etc, so I just took care of the general living ones. Anyway, after about 6 months, a bailiff turned up on the doorstep to repossess his motorbike!! I managed to get rid of the bailiff, and when the hubby got home, he admitted he had over £17,000 worth of debt. He told me he is rubbish with money and handed his bank card, credit card and all the loan details to me. We sat down and worked out a plan, it was very hard at first because I had never had to deal with debt. Eventually it was paid off, it took around 10 years though, because we just weren't earning much.

He is still rubbish with money, he constantly wants to get loans out, for no reason other than to have some spare cash to throw around, but I have been tough with him, although sometimes I feel like his mother telling him no all the time.

This year is our year, now we have controlled debt. This year is the year it all begins to be paid off. I have managed to convince him to look forward to the time when we have £250 a week extra to play with, rather than having to budget to the penny to concentrate on paying the bills. He is that set on being absolutely debt free, that even though my car payments finish next year anyway, once the loan has been paid off in July, he wants to use the additional money to pay off the car, which I think is fab. And he is determined that because the kids are older, we can start thinking about just jetting off on holidays together, and basically for the first time in our 17 years, be able to enjoy our money.

By the way, once I found out about his debt, we closed all the accounts and opened one joint account and I became the sole card holder for that account.... he didn't trust himself that much!!!

salesaddict

Hello Hulagirl,
I am very sorry for your current predicament. Can I just tell you that my sister spent 30 years bailing out my bil every few years. He is the type of man who could win a million and yet spend 2 million. They are now divorced, she has been left with massive debts. He has moved on with someone else and they are currently in the process of being repossessed. I wonder if she had not bailed him out in the early days if the story would have had a different ending.No one knows about this except some close family and friends. To the outside world he looks like a successful business man. The truth is quite the opposite. Please don't add his debts to mortgage. Please make him face up to them now.

Take care. xx.

chesky369

Both of you must go for debt advice together - your local CAB should be able to either help you directly or pass you onto someone who can. Ask them for a personal finance statement - one for each of you to complete.

Gambling/drink/drugs/blackmail/other family?

Do not allow yourself to be bullied into signing anything that would allow him to put the debts on the mortgage.