Divorce and debts!

Belfastguy35

My best friend has recently split from his wife and he has discovered that she has about £30k worth of debts! He has very little assets - just his car and pension but no savings. He is also paying child maintenance for his children. His main concern is can he be liable for half of his wife's debts? They had a joint bank account while they were married which he paid his salary into but as far as I know all loans etc were in her name. Can he be liable for half of her debts if they divorce? Would he also have to split his car and pension with her? Thankfully they didn't own their own house so they don't need to worry about trying to sell that.
Would she be best going bankrupt or could she end up making him bankrupt too as a result of all this?
Any advice on this kind of thing would be much appreciated.

TBagpuss

He isn't liable to any third party unless he countersigned or guaranteed the debts, so he would be liable for things like an overdraft on a joint account, but not for loans or credits cards in her sole name.

His wife may be entitled to a share of the pension.

The car is potentially a matrimonial asset so she might be entitled to a lump sum representing a share of its value, particularly if it is an expensive car.

gonzo127

TBagpuss wrote: »

He isn't liable to any third party unless he countersigned or guaranteed the debts, so he would be liable for things like an overdraft on a joint account, but not for loans or credits cards in her sole name.

His wife may be entitled to a share of the pension.

The car is potentially a matrimonial asset so she might be entitled to a lump sum representing a share of its value, particularly if it is an expensive car.

although this in essence is true, in regards to the companies chasing him for payment,

for the divorce it is very likely that the debts will be taken into account on the splitting of the assets, and he will possibly be expected to pay for some of them, as if they have been created during the marriage it could/would be argued that they are joint matrimonial debts, used to fund both of their lifestyles whilst married, and therefore making him liable for them as well.

as ever though all depends on the specific situation and proper legal advise should be got to get the correct legal position of this persons proper position

TBagpuss

gonzo127 wrote: »

although this in essence is true, in regards to the companies chasing him for payment,

for the divorce it is very likely that the debts will be taken into account on the splitting of the assets, and he will possibly be expected to pay for some of them, as if they have been created during the marriage it could/would be argued that they are joint matrimonial debts, used to fund both of their lifestyles whilst married, and therefore making him liable for them as well.

as ever though all depends on the specific situation and proper legal advise should be got to get the correct legal position of this persons proper position

The debts would be taken into accoutn if the court accepted that they had been built up for the benefit of the family and if the re were assets available to pay for them.

The court does not have the power to order him to pay them.

At most, they could order him to pay maintenace to the wife in order to help her to pay them, but this is fiarly unlikely unless ther eis very strong evidence that he had the benfit of them. If they were built up without his knowledge this seems fairly unlikely.

he shuld go to see a local solicitor and get some proper advice.

He could also pass Stepchange's details on to his wife so she can, if she wishes, get some advice about dealing with the debt and whether an IVA or bankruptcy might be in her interests.