Husband facing custodial sentence - what about debts?

Tixy

JimBobJones wrote: »

However it will default and very quickly go to a CCJ. If he goes to prison for 6 years it will be statute barred when he comes out and nearly off his credit file.

I agree they would be likely to consider court action and obtain a CCJ in this instance.

And if they do that then of course it will never become statute barred.

suburbanwifey

JimBobJones wrote: »

It's not illegal as this isn't one of the security questions on a loan application, not telling a loan company something they haven't asked isn't a crime and the CCA is quite clear it is the creditors responsibility to check ensure they are not lending money someone cannot pay back.

There will be no fraud charge for this loan. However it will default and very quickly go to a CCJ. If he goes to prison for 6 years it will be statute barred when he comes out and nearly off his credit file.

My advice would be to not pay anything towards it, you are not liable for it, they cannot pursue him for it because he's in no position to pay. What will happen is the creditor will get a CCJ for payments be reviewed for payments after your husbands release, that is of course if he's released within 6 years, if he's not its automatically statute barred and nothing is to be paid.

The CCJ will be applied for anyway in this situation, this is why I've advised to pay nothing towards it.

Correct. In fact, regardless of the morals of what he has done it seems to me he's done his best to leave his wife in a stable-ish position whilst he is in prison ie: no credit card debt or overdraft as she is non-working. I suspect his heart is in the right place and who's to say someone else in his situation would not do the same? like I say, I'm not discussing the morals of the story here, just stating facts. I agree with the above poster, wifey - don't pay a penny to this loan, its not yours, its his.

The_Boss

tinkerbell28 wrote: »

I don't think this will work well for him at all. If he knew he was taking a loan which a high chance he couldn't pay it back.

He may face further criminal charges especially in light of already doing something serious enough to warrant possible prison.

Wonder if it will affect any decision over early release as well as possible other chargesnor extension of sentence? He didn't really think it through.

OP - is there any way he can borrow money to repay the loan?

suburbanwifey

ilikenoodles wrote: »

Hi all,

My husband is currently on the warned list to appear at court some time this month. His solicitor has said he will definitely be doing a custodial sentence - somewhere between 2.5 and 6 years.

On Wednesday he took out a personal loan for £3000, so that he could pay of both our credit cards and get us out of our overdraft in our joint account.

I wasn't consulted about this prior (:mad:) and the loan is entirely in his name.

What I'd like to know is - do his debts become mine when he goes to prison? Is it possible to 'freeze' the loan payments (yet still make the odd payment whenever I can)/phone bill until he comes out of prison?

I'm not currently working at the minute so all of this is giving me a massive headache I could do without! The husband's boss has said that he will have a job to go back to once he's released, which is brilliant, but that doesn't really help in the meantime.

I've tried and tried to find an answer on the internet but failed at every hurdle!
Thanks very much in advance.

Bit more advice: now the overdraft is clear get his name off the account, you'll need his signature for that so do it before he goes to court. That way your bank account is safe.

suburbanwifey

The_Boss wrote: »

Wonder if it will affect any decision over early release as well as possible other chargesnor extension of sentence? He didn't really think it through.

OP - is there any way he can borrow money to repay the loan?

Until he is sentenced, he has no definite way of knowing he will get a custodial sentence. Just because a judge or solicitor says to 'expect' a custodial does not mean it will happen. A drunk driver who caused a serious crash that almost killed a couple that I know was told to expect a custodial, when she admitted guilt to dangerous driving and driving under the influence she was given a 'suspended' sentence. She'd packed to get sent down. In my opinion he hasn't committed fraud and I think the scare mongers posting are just annoyed he did what he did as it appears a bit immoral. No one goes to jail until a court decides it, a solicitor can be wrong and often is.

tinkerbell28

There is a big difference in the sentences. Expect to go down and you will DEFINITELY go down.

Some crimes do have an out and out minimum custodial sentence, which sounds like it is the case here. Otherwise a solicitor would not be using the word definite.

It may well effect it boss, depending what it is for.

suburbanwifey

tinkerbell28 wrote: »

There is a big difference in the sentences. Expect to go down and you will DEFINITELY go down.

Some crimes do have an out and out minimum custodial sentence, which sounds like it is the case here. Otherwise a solicitor would not be using the word definite.

It may well effect it boss, depending what it is for.

The drunk I mentioned, they were told to expect a custodial sentence by the judge in the hearing, they got a suspended when it all occurred. They were told to expect and it didn't happen, you are wrong. Depends on the crime etc. but if he'd committed murder he'd be looking at more than 6 years anyway, so as you don't know the crime, maybe you should stop scare mongering?

ilikenoodles

SailorSam wrote: »

It sounds to me as if it may have been a carefully thought out plan, ......... get a loan which i want have to pay 'cos i'll be in jail.
After what the Solicitor has said he's pretty certain he's going down so he knew he wouldn't be here to make the repayments.
I hope the loan isn't from one of those Mickey Mouse places that don't take No for an answer.

I genuinely don't think he did it trying to be sneaky - he did it to pay off his and my credit cards and to get our joint account out of the overdraft we seemed to be forever stuck in. He said he wanted to do this to make it easier for me whilst he's in prison, so I don't have to keep on paying minimum CC charges and getting nowhere with it.

What he failed to think of was how I will be able to pay £87 a month to repay the loan; I recently lost my job and, although I'm actively seeking employment every day, I can't say with absolute certainty that I'll find anything very soon. Having said that, I do have an interview on Monday - with a debt management company of all places (!).

I don't mind paying the loan off whilst he's away if I'm able, but I'm mainly just worried about what could happen to myself - as his wife - should I not be able to make each payment.

To the posters who have advised not to pay a penny - this is all a little confusing for me. Would he then be in a worse off position upon his release? It smells a bit morally fishy for me not to at least try to make the payments. I'd feel a bit naughty just cancelling the DD and ignoring it.

Dogger69

JimBobJones wrote: »

It's not illegal as this isn't one of the security questions on a loan application, not telling a loan company something they haven't asked isn't a crime and the CCA is quite clear it is the creditors responsibility to check ensure they are not lending money someone cannot pay back.

There will be no fraud charge for this loan. However it will default and very quickly go to a CCJ. If he goes to prison for 6 years it will be statute barred when he comes out and nearly off his credit file.

My advice would be to not pay anything towards it, you are not liable for it, they cannot pursue him for it because he's in no position to pay. What will happen is the creditor will get a CCJ for payments be reviewed for payments after your husbands release, that is of course if he's released within 6 years, if he's not its automatically statute barred and nothing is to be paid.

The CCJ will be applied for anyway in this situation, this is why I've advised to pay nothing towards it.

I disagree, telling someone you have x income in the knowledge that income will not exist within a month is deception. Some questions do not have to be asked outright, an assumption that the declared income will be ongoing is implicit in any such agreement.

The OP also needs to consider that *if* the bank wish to pursue this through the criminal courts, they may also push for action to be taken against her as a party to the offence. Whilst she is not a party to the loan, she has willingly taken advantage of it by having it applied against her debts.

OP, you need to speak to your solicitor about this. The implications are far too serious to be taking advice from strangers on the internet.

zzzLazyDaisy

No solicitor can say FOR DEFINITE that someone WILL go down. The worst they can say is that there is a high possibility that they may get a custodial sentence. Having said that, in my experience solicitors don't use words like that anyway so I suspect the OP or OH has put that interpretation on what the solicitor was saying to them.

OP, I would definitely get his name off the joint account. But in fact, once it is in your name only, personally I would open a new account in my sole name, transfer all the direct debits etc, and close the joint account all together (that's not legal advice, it is just what I would do).

Any debts in his sole name are his debts. The same thing will happen to them as what would have happened if he was unable to pay owing to falling sick or being made redundant. They are not your responsibility and I would advise you to ignore them, you will have enough on your plate.

I also echo what other posters have said.... it is good of the employer to say they'll keep his job open, but the fact is that over a period of years things change and there is a very high risk that the job won't exist by the time he gets out.