Joint account for bills - stuck in a cycle of debt

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ninnoodle wrote: »

January20 - thanks for your suggestion. I may possibly be able to get my OH to transfer the bills to my account, although not sure he would be so keen. Do you mean for me to pay off the overdraft myself? Because he hasn't got any spare cash to. He also doesn't see the urgency in clearing the overdraft when it's there. But yes, I may seek advice also on the DFW board - they are very helpful there too!

He cannot keep sticking his head into the sand if you are to have a child.
You don't have any money left over now (at least he doesn't), how are you going to manage while you are on maternity leave and then when you need to pay for nursery??

This is the long term future you need to consider. He needs to consider.

ninnoodle

RAS wrote: »

Do you understand that if you get to the point where there is equity in the property, your OH's creditors will go for CCJs and Charging Orders to secure the debts he owes them. OK, on a joint mortgage if you are lucky and they do not get it right, when you sell there may be a get-out but creditors are beginning to learn from their previous mistakes and get it right.

Thanks for the advice. He jumps about on 0% deals on his credit card debt all the time and manages to make the minimum payments so he is not worried as they are not demanding money from him.

And I know, the IVF stuff isn't a great time. However, we've been trying for over 3 years, and I ain't getting any younger. It's basically now or never. If we couldn't manage with a baby, we would sell the house and buy somewhere cheaper.

Oops, also what is a CCJ?

RAS

County Court Judgement.

There are a number of factsheets on the National Debtline web-site including this one http://www.nationaldebtline.co.uk/england_wales/factsheet.php?page=20_replying_to_a_county_court_claim_form

I suggest that you and OH go to the snowball on www.whatsthecost.com and work out how many decades it will take to pay off £21K if he keeps to minimum payments.

esmerelda98

Have you looked on the Debt-free Wannabe (DFW) board? I think that's one of the best places to start. On there these sorts of stories aren't quite as uncommon as people might think, along with strategies to help. Ultimately, because you are connected to him financially, he needs to be a part of the solution, or slowly and surely he will pull you under. I think you should consider opening a new bank account to have your wages paid into, and then try to come to a repayment plan with your old bank whereby they stop adding new charges. I'll just mention DFW again.

ninnoodle

Yeah I might post on DFW too.
My wages are already paid into my own account - the joint account is only used for the bills and we transfer a set amount across every month.

January20

ninnoodle wrote: »

January20 - thanks for your suggestion. I may possibly be able to get my OH to transfer the bills to my account, although not sure he would be so keen. Do you mean for me to pay off the overdraft myself? Because he hasn't got any spare cash to. He also doesn't see the urgency in clearing the overdraft when it's there. But yes, I may seek advice also on the DFW board - they are very helpful there too!

Well, I would have suggested that he paid a little extra every month but since he has no spare cash..... I know it is unfair on you because you didn't create the problem but in the long run -if you can afford it AND if you can take steps to make sure he can't do it again - it will benefit you. But you must protect yourself and make sure you don't pay it off for him to then spend the money again.

BitterAndTwisted

I suspect that the situation is even worse than you may think. Anyone who snatches money from a joint-account set up purely to pay the mortgage and bills from and puts it into more than two grand's-worth of overdraft is in more trouble than you know about. I expect that it's because he's up to or over his overdraft limit on his own personal bank-account and can't get his hands on any more cash from it.

A very, very serious ultimatum needs to be forthcoming. Before you have a child with this dolt and you lose the roof over three people's heads and not just two.

Dinah93

If he's taken a joint account over the overdraft that many times I wouldn't count on getting a decent new morgage deal, both your credit ratings will be shot. Plus being late on mortgage payments is a BIG DEAL to mortgage lenders so I really, really wouldn't count on being able to buy somewhere cheaper when you have a baby. We'd taken our joint OD overdrawn twice in the year before our mortgage application (both times by less than £20 as DH took money out of the wrong account before I took his bank cards and used a sharpie to write 'spends' 'petrol' and 'food' on his three cards!) and we still had to provide extra proof of income and evidence our deposit was saved not gifted due to our credit history.

You don't seem angry at him to be honest, I'd be livid that he'd !!!!ed up our future this badly and was being completely unrepentant.

The bank won't take your name off an account in debt unless he agrees to sign it all over into his name. They would only do this though if they had evidence he could afford to repay it. Personally I would seriously consider transfering the account into my name only and clearing it myself. No, you shouldn't have to, and yes it's wrong, but it's also damaging your credit record and I strongly believe the only way you can move forward as a couple is not to have joint accounts and for him to pay you his share of the bills and you to deal with it. I know most people will say never take on a partner's debts - but legally you're jointly liable for this, and getting ti paid off now could well save you more than you pay out on it upfront between bank charges and higher mortgage costs. You mention you have savings, use them to help your family because we do all have failings and quite clearly one of his is that he is awful with money.

Set up a new account IN YOUR NAME ONLY, get the direct debit for the bills transfered to that. check it monthly, make sure he is paying in what he is supposed to be paying in. I don't get why he'd be resistant to this, you are showing a huge ammount of trust staying with him despite the damage he has done, why wouldn't he ttrust you with his bills money? It will ensure a roof over his head, heating on, no one knocking at the door asking why the leccy bill hasn't been paid - I'd be quite concerned if he doesn't trust you to deal with the bills when he's the one who has caused such an issue.

You can't undo the damage he's done to your credit record, and clearly are willing to accept his behaviour, in all honesty I can't see all that much you can do as it is very likely the situation is going to get worse since he is unwilling to change his behaviour.

You can only dissasociate if you sign a document stating you are no longer associated with this person - I did it with my ex as for some reason he was still showing as an associated person 3 yaers later. You clearly are still associated if you have joint financial products, a mortgage, and live together. My ex started off by running up a £1000 OD (and £2440 of charges over 2 years) on the joint account, which I kept bringing back into the black, and he kept taking over the limit again. Within a year he'd managed to run up over £7000 in missed payments, ODs, charges, credit cards he'd got in my name as he couldn't get them in his (and didn't tell me about), and I was left with the lot to pay back. It was most certainly worth it to be free of him though!

You're not acusing him if you're being honest, he's just deflecting because he doesn't want to face up to responsibility.

How are you going to afford a baby with this man? Have you looked at your future finances for when you're on SMP? Or when you return to work what your childcare costs will be like? If things are so tight now and he isn't facing responsibility that as a daddy to be he needs to support his own family not waste money on who knows what, then would it shake him into reality if you sat down with a future budget and say 'with things as they are right now, we can't afford a family yet'? I know with my DH that would scare him into action like nothing else, heck mine has been working all day Saturday and Sunday as well as his 9-5 in the week for over a year now to clear our debts and get some savings in place for our baby. We didn't start trying until financially I knew I could depend on him, and he knew he had to show me that. Please bear in mind you're likely to be a variable rate mortgage at this point - can you afford the repayments on SMP and his wage if interest rates have risen? Hope for the best, prepare for the worst - when my mum was on maternity leave dad left the house and his mortage was on 6.5%, came home and it was on 17.5% - our IFA told us a realistic figure to be able to plan for in terms of affordibility is 8%.

I presume you're not eligible for NHS IVF if you're having to pay?

If you can't afford all the bills prioritise, mortgage and council tax are top of the list, minimum debt repayments and utilities after that, right down the bottom is spending money.

Are all the debts unsecured or are any secured on the property? Is he making payments on all his cards and loans, or are bayliffs liable to turn up sometime? If the IVF works (and while I don't think he's responsible enough to be a dad, I pray for your sake it does) you do NOT need any other stress in the pregnancy, especially the first 12 weeks. Every tiny stretch, stabbing pain, spot of blood makes you terrified you're loosing the baby, that is of course if you can keep your eyes awake long enough to panic about such things in between hanging over the toilet bowl. You will need to lean on him both during and afterthe pregnancy as you can't do everything you're used to taking on for him.

You can't force him into a realisation to deal with his debt, he has to come to that on his own. Unfortuantely until he does you're going to be constantly trying to stem all the leaks in his financial dam.

BitterAndTwisted

Oh, my goodness, if I could thank Dinah93 a million times for that very candid post, I would.

OP: I honestly think you should take control and take every single card off him and seek to withdraw his access to any of your money.

He's proven a number of times that he's completely irresponsible and now he's been dishonest.

In the meantime I would have a look at your credit-file and see what the situation is. Very often the next step when someone can't access funds is to start applying for loans and credit-cards in your name. You can arrange to have a flag put on your file to prevent that happening without your knowledge. Please do it without delay.

gfplux

Well said Dina93,
As a man the op's other half makes me ashamed. He does not deserve to be in a good relationship. I question wether he wants to be. Is his spending something to do with the costs of IVF that will be needed next year?
Again as a man I say get rid of him, he will not change, men rarely do.