Advice needed for niece please.

peachyprice

clearingout wrote: »

I think that will depend on what the court order says - I had child maintenance on top of an order to pay the mortgage on the family home, for example. Not that he paid it but that's another story!

Exactly! And nothing happened to him, he didn't get arrested for it. So while there was a family court order for him to pay it there was no consequences to him not paying (other than the obvious repo). I think that's what Lottie was getting at.

OP's niece doesn't have a hope in hell in making him pay the mortgage from SA if he decides not to, regardless of any court order made here.

LannieDuck

I think OP's niece needs to start working on a worse-case scenario - if he suddenly goes bankrupt (not unrealistic), and the maintenance and mortgage payments cease (or become a token £1/wk), what is she going to do?

I imagine with the house deeds in his name, the mortgage company will seek repossession. I don't know whether the court order allowing her to stay there will trump the reposession, but I doubt it.

I think she needs to start making arrangements to be self-sufficient, however difficult that may be, and view anything she gets out of him from here-on-in as a bonus.

RAS

Niece needs to go onto the Child Support forum here and look up REMO and see if REMO applies in SA.

If it does then she should contact them and see if she can enforce to court ruling in SA.

susancs

A friend of mine was in a smilar situation, although her ex-husband was in this country so probably different rules apply. The house was in joint names with him paying the interest only mortgage and she paid the endowment policy as agreed by the court. Firstly she had a letter stating that their would be a shortfall in the endowment and she had to take out another policy to cover that. She had several "red" debt letters being sent to the address he no longer lived at for various things and a letter stating the mortgage had not been paid, even baliffs turning up. She rang the mortgage company who agreed to her making small payments for a time. She then increased her hours at work to pay the mortgage(and arrears) herself as she said to keep a roof over their heads. She got his agreement to sell and was planning to use the equity with a small mortgage to buy a smaller property, but found she could not as a lein had been put against it by the tax office (due to his self employed tax arrears). She is still paying off the mortgage which has 4 years left on it and hopes that there will be enough for her to sell and get a property at the end of it for herself and her three children after the tax man has the arrears. She says with hindsight she should have severed all financial ties with her ex-husband (she could not while the mortgage is in joint names) by buying him out via a mortgage or sold and taken her equity to buy a smaller property or a property in a less expensive area.

I would say your neice really needs to go to the CAB to check what might happen if he owes debts in regard to creditors going after a property that is still in his name as this seems to be a senario that might happen. She also may need to consider various options for herself and her children.

RAS

Is this case Scottish?

If England or Wales, read Blueback's thread on the Myth of charging orders on the debtfree wannabee forum.

susancs wrote: »

A friend of mine was in a smilar situation, although her ex-husband was in this country so probably different rules apply. The house was in joint names with him paying the interest only mortgage and she paid the endowment policy as agreed by the court. Firstly she had a letter stating that their would be a shortfall in the endowment and she had to take out another policy to cover that. She had several "red" debt letters being sent to the address he no longer lived at for various things and a letter stating the mortgage had not been paid, even baliffs turning up. She rang the mortgage company who agreed to her making small payments for a time. She then increased her hours at work to pay the mortgage(and arrears) herself as she said to keep a roof over their heads. She got his agreement to sell and was planning to use the equity with a small mortgage to buy a smaller property, but found she could not as a lein had been put against it by the tax office (due to his self employed tax arrears). She is still paying off the mortgage which has 4 years left on it and hopes that there will be enough for her to sell and get a property at the end of it for herself and her three children after the tax man has the arrears. She says with hindsight she should have severed all financial ties with her ex-husband (she could not while the mortgage is in joint names) by buying him out via a mortgage or sold and taken her equity to buy a smaller property or a property in a less expensive area.

I would say your neice really needs to go to the CAB to check what might happen if he owes debts in regard to creditors going after a property that is still in his name as this seems to be a senario that might happen. She also may need to consider various options for herself and her children.

susancs

RAS wrote: »

Is this case Scottish?

If England or Wales, read Blueback's thread on the Myth of charging orders on the debtfree wannabee forum.

No she lives in England, will have a read of the thread.

susancs

Thank you RAS for the information, will pass it on to my friend. I am not sure if it is different beacuse the lein is by the Inland Revenue as when the debt collector called she was told that unlike other creditors different rules apply and her solicitor agreed with this it seems.
Thread here if anyone else is interested:
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/1839539