Advice sought for mortgage mess

thompson369 · 12 June 2013 at 5:15PM

Short as possible back story - Husband bought a house with ex in 2005, he moved out in 2009 but continued paying his share of mortgage and bills whilst house was up for sale. In 2010 he applied to take on the (approx) £90k mortgage on a salary of about £30k with a cash deposit of £15k but the bank turned him down - ex couldn't get a mortgage either.

Very naively he did not check whether the ex was making mortgage payments and yes you guessed it, she wasn't, was just keeping the cash from husband. Fast forward to last year and a debt collector was knocking on husband's mum's door regarding mortgage arrears of £2.5k. House was subsequently repossessed and today a letter has arrived stating that the overall debt now due based on arrears and shortfall following sale of house are £37k.

The ex has declared herself bankrupt about 15 months ago so this will all fall on husband (us?). We've only been married a short while - he lives in my house (he isn't named on the mortgage) and there is about £80k of equity in it (on a good day). We have one child together, I have two other children from a previous marriage. I also earn a good salary so tend to pay for most of the things at home but he contributes an amount we are both happy with.

I suppose my questions are:
1) Does anyone have any tips on the best way forward - where is the best place to get some advice on this?
2) All our income and assets are separate (he basically has no assets!) - can they come after "my" income/assets in any way?
3) Do you think there are any grounds to complain seeing as he wanted to take on the mortgage three years ago and the lender said no?