File for Bankrupcy or Not?

lillyvalley

To keep my story simple, i’m just gonna get straight to the point.

My husband has got us into debt, because he is an addicted gambler. A few years back he was given a £25,000 secured loan . Of course I did not know of this until it was too late.. and to make it worst, my husband also increased our mortgage (again without me knowing, even though the mortgage does have my name on it, the banks did not call me to notify me of the changes...and my husband I am guessing forged my signature for the paper work) and so the extra money he borrowed was used to fund his addiction.

Our repayments are now so high that Myself and my husband is now considering whether to allow our flat to be repossessed.
Although we are just managing the payments, we are unfortunately in no position to be able to save any money at all.

We have a 14 mth old son together, and as a mother I need to do what is right for me and him.

We cannot resell our flat because we need to get permission from the company which my husband took the secured loan, but because the flat does not cover the mortgage and the secured loan payments they are saying 'No'.
We’ve also spoken to our mortgage lender Abbey to see if we can lower our payments but they said 'No' too.

If we were to allow the flat to be repossessed (even though it’s no fault of my own, but as my name is on the mortgage), would that mean I have to declare myself bankrupt as well as my husband?

We still have our jobs, so after declaring bankruptcy, we hope to save what we can for our child, and living back with our parents.

Is there any alternative?

Ineedaname

Hi there and welcome to you.

The first thing you need to do is contact one of the free debt advice charities listed in the Look Here First sticky thread. They will help you through your options.

I think the second thing is to try and get your husband to admit he has a gambling problem and take action on that. Otherwise you could end up in this position again in the future.

I don't know if you would have any recourse against the mortgage company for not speaking to you about the remortgage... but that would probably only involve more stress for both you and your husband if he did forge your signature.

It's good you are standing by him and want to get things sorted, a very courageous and loving decision.

dojoman

Hi and welcome to the forum:)


Please contact one of the charities below, they will offer free and impartial advice.

https://www.nationaldebtline.co.uk/
https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/
https://www.cccs.co.uk/

kepar

The problem as I see is that as you are managing the payments even if only just you are not insolvent. To go bankrupt you need to be insolvent, I know that is not what you want to hear as you want to clear the debts and start again for your child. After talking to one of the charities listed above you will find that if your husband goes br then the mortgage will come down to you.
Did he get the secured loan the same way he got the mortgage, because that might come to you as well.

To be honest, going bankrupt because you have no spare money is not the right option. You may have to tighten your belts or find small part time jobs .
Also do you want a lot of spare money around with your husband and his addiction. He needs to consider his position and seek some help if available.

Gambling is not an easy addiction to get rid of, do you know what type of gambling your husband is in to?
He needs to find a way of stopping that aspect, as in if it is online then put restrictions on the computer to ban certain websites. If it is the bookies. the get him to write to all the local bookies and get himself excluded. Facing up to the problem will help him.

Has he had the problem a long time or has it got worse since the birth of your little one? Has he lost his job, or is he trying to win money to get out of a situation?
The trouble with gambling especially if you cannot afford to do it is that a molehill can turn into a mountain. You have an odd tenner in your pocket you need for X , you decide to have a bet on a good thing it loses . So what do you do , you take money from somewhere else to try and win that tenner back. Maybe you lose another £30, and the cycle keeps happening now you have to get back , maybe next time £100, the 2 then 4 and you will only stop when you have no more access to money. All for the loss of a tenner.

Now if you do go br your husband will have some explaining to do about his gambling habits but he has to be honest and take what comes. The OR may be lenient if takes full responsibility.

Also you may ask what gives the right to go on like this , but I have posted on this site for a few years but I never really explained my problems. I was/am an addictive gambler , I ran up huge debts on credit cards , loans and a large secure loan. My wife thought she was helping by taking the secure loan out to clear all our debt, but within a year I had lost another £50,000. Now whilst I was working I had a good income and we could just about afford the bills, but when I got ill (tumour) we were losing about £3-3.5k a month. As we were on a tight budget anyway, my wife was using credit for us to get by. She had/has a good job anyway but it wasn't enough. As soon as I was getting credit on my cards I was trying to win some money for us. Bankruptcy was the only option for us, my wife the innocent in all this ,who had tried to keep the family together had to go br as well, as she could not afford her debts as well as the mortgage and secured loan . So I have some experience in the area.

Since br my wife runs all the accounts, I get a bit of pocket money and I have a Vanquis card for emergencies. I won't say I don't have an odd bet now and again, but I am using my money and not credit. If I lose I lose, the pressure is not there to win it back.

So think long and hard you husband needs help, but if you are going to stand by him he needs your support. One thing we agreed on after the br was that if we wanted our relationship to continue the we had to put the reasons for the br behind us. Now 30 months later we accept what happened and are enjoying life again, things will never go back to how they were because I will never have access to the credit I had before. Gambling can be fun and rewarding if you can afford to lose, but if you can't the it will only spiral out of control.

Believe me I have been there.

NeverAgain_2

lillyvalley,

How much do you owe?

What is the worth of the flat?

How much have you coming in?

How much are you paying back?

lillyvalley

Thank you for all your advice and especially to you Kapar.. ..
well my husband's addiction started years ago when we first met and started dating, age 17!

It was .. for fun at first, it started with machines.. and then moved on to casinos when he already got himself in deep trouble.. and well you'd think a he'll change after a big incident and loss, but he didn't. Finally with the help of his parent we managed to get a deposit for our flat and a mortgage .. hoping he would stop .. but that didn't stop him and then... we got married have a kid.. and guess what?? yep he continued behind my back ..despite all the crap we have been through... so this is my what?? 5th time (I think, I've lost count in the 15 years I have been with him) him deceiving and losing lots of money.
So from fruit machines to casinos to online casino's / betting...

Like you, he earns a decent amount of money, so we've always.. JUST MANAGED!

So my only solution is yes like your wife I have to lock money away or hide my personal acc from him so he won't be able to access it.

He works in IT, and has a work lap top and computer at work.. so he will always have access to the internet.

He has in the passed went to Gamblers Anonymous.. but he just laughed it off.. and said it was not for him...


He knows he has a problem and he knows all he has to do is STOP.. but even despite this time he still does not give me a guarantee that this will not happen again……

All I know is that I need to protect myself and son from his gambling.. ie having a lump sum for us so that when or if all is lost, me and my son will still have something,... a roof over our head and food!


Yes I am concerned What if my husband loses his job or what if I am made redundant etc.. so very important for me to make the right choice now to turn things a round.

So strange when I read your post, as I myself.. though not ill (cos I am not in pain), I have a cyst and am expected to have surgery soon to remove one of my ovaries.

Having said that, I was diagnosed with cancer when I was 15.. and have survived it…

Despite all the C*** in life I’m always pretty optimistic… ? why?? Because I have to.. for my son and my family… and to stop myself from going crazy!

Maybe some will think I’m stupid to continue being with my husband.. and I don’t blame them, because if I was a stranger reading this post I’ll probably be thinking ‘ why has this woman not left him?’ maybe one day I will... but not today..... we'll see what the future hold ...

pearls_of_wisdom

hi, sorry to hear of you're problems especially with children involved point 1 .are you in negative equity. 2. if i understand your position correctly you're understanding is you need permission from people who hold 2nd charge(secured loan) to sell property they are talking absolute rubbish unless i've missed something and i've owned a lot of property over last 20 years they may already be aware there facing a capital loss if you were to abandon payments and walk away i.e repossession,hence question 1. point 3.you have financial struggles,relationship strains something eventually i hate to say will lprobably give, full marks for standing by your other half but it's time to get your priorities in order you and your child come first and it's time your other half faced up to his responsibilities i guess he won't unless you take the lead,have you thought of taking legal advice on matter of forged signature to cover yourself if i was you i think you need to speak to a specialist criminal lawyer i'm sure you can pick the brains of a few local solicitors for free. point 4. i briefly looked at other threads so i may have conflicted with other people's points but nobody appeared to have asked you further with regard to your flat i suggest you look into point 3,consider what i mentioned point 2

mel12

Hi, so there seem to be 2 problems with the flat

1) is that its in negative equity (if I've understood right?), and either a sale or repossession will leave you with a shortfall which will become an unsecured debt.

As both names are on the mortgage/ loan the debt will be joint - meaning you are liable for the whole amount (not half) if he goes bankrupt.
I'm not sure if this would be different if you decide to explore the legal route about the mortgage company not speaking to you/ did your husband forge signature etc. And I appreciate you might not want to as you're still in a relationship with him.
Community legal advice http://www.communitylegaladvice.org.uk/ have a free helpline if you do want to check whether theres any options there - I don't know where you stand to be honest.

Edit: is the secured loan in both names or in his name only?

2) is the high repayments. Is renting the flat out an option you could look into instead?


3)
Other than that - bankrupcy might not be the best option if your main aim is to save some money. You will be asked to pay any surplus after living expenses to an income payment arrangement for 3 years after going bankrupt. This depends on your income - if no surplus you won't have to pay anything but there are guidelines about how much your expenses can be. This would make it difficult to save much if anything.

Given your husband's gambling, theres a good chance he could be given a bankrupcy restriction order if he went bankrupt - this extends the restrictions in bankrupcy [not the payments] for between 2 and 15 years

I'd recommend calling one of the debt advice charities dojoman and ineedaname have mentionned.

4) It sounds like a very difficult situation with your husbands gambling, and very stressful for you. Is there somewhere you can get support for yourself in dealing with this ? (as opposed to support for him).

I hope things work out OK for you.

mel12

Also you don't have to declare bankrupcy even if you do let the house be repossessed. The shortfall would become an unsecured debt and you could come to an arrangement with them about paying it off.

lillyvalley

Hi Mel,

Thanks for your advice, actually you've helped me answered a very important question, I always wondered if we let the flat to be repossessed does that mean we have to file for bankruptcy?

Yes the flat is in negative equity.. we still have 19yrs on our mortgage but by that time, we would have paid a whopping £288k. The truth of this matter, is that the flat we have is not going to be worth this amount ever, even during when the market was strong it'll probably just manage to sell a round the 200k mark.

And so the idea of us giving up this property seems a better option.

The other reason why I want to give up the property is because I feel this particular asset, is one of the reasons why even though my husband does not have a great credit rating, banks or other organisations are still happily to give him money (Not realizing he is a serious gambler) but if they did, would they really care and act responsibly?

The secured loan is only on my husband’s name, he borrowed 25k and with interest it looks like the amount he will be paying is a round the 30k mark!

With this, last year he took out 2 separate unsecured loan with his name and the figure is 14k plus interest.

You’re right, I doubt I will proceed with any action against my husband regarding the forgery of my signature and without my consent, even though at the time I did thought about it, but then I really have no money for any court proceedings or to see a solicitor, and I don’t want my husband to get a criminal record as that will affect his career, and hence income towards his child.

In the mean time we’re just managing and trying to seek out what alternatives there are.

I have no savings, not because I don’t know how to save, but because in all these years my money has been used up to save our property from being repossessed and to stop bailiffs from taking any action against us…and my husband have stolen from me to feed his gambling habit… (it’s not hard when living with someone to get their card details and use it for online gambling, and he has even lied to me about he’s family members needing money).


Anyway I think if we can get away with letting go of the property without bankruptcy, it’s probably our best strategy forward…

pearls_of_wisdom

hi , 2nd message i have a few questions 1.i assume your other half is not aware of this online discussion.
2.i urge you to seek specialist legal advice as suggested tue from a criminal lawyer the reason i repeat this is you need to be in receipt of the full facts as to what possible implications your partners actions has on you,i now you're innocent in all of this but if you are on the verge of giving up property and leaving debts left right and centre you NEED TO BE SURE YOU'RE COVERED and not guilty by mere association. 3.i would delay any conversation with your other half until you have clear understanding of point 2,imagine your partner doesn't agree offloading flat but you find out there maybe criminal aspects you're going to end up falling out SO AGAIN COVER YOURSELF BEFORE ANY COURSE OF ACTION IS EMBARKED UPON i appreciate my comments may sound excessive but i strongly recommend you deal with this step by step as it is almost impossible to full gauge every aspect of this as you have a lot to sort out good luck