Help and Guidance required

Jatboy

Hi All,

I need some assistance please. This is on behalf of a family member of mine.

I have a sister who is in a marriage where she is receiving verbal abuse, physical abuse, her kids are being picked on, and her husband is spending the little money they have.

They have a joint mortgage, joint account and joint credit cards. The husband is living well beyond his means and this is causing financial stress and mental stress on my sister.

The husband is also an alcoholic and drug user.

After 10 years in the marriage, she has been pushed to the limit and can no longer tolerate any of the abuse that she is receiving or her kids are receiving. she has decided to leave her husband and request a divorce.

Please can you provide assistance on how this can be done in a simple, clean and cost effective way? sHe has little money and does not want to lose it in the divorce.

Further, if her husband refuses to leave the house, and she has to go, what are her potential options?

Temporarily she can stay with family, but after that she is on her own.

Are there any charity or support groups she can turn to?

Is there any financial assistance available?

She wants to be brave and take the required action, but is scared of the financial impact and the husband seeing the kids and influencing them with incorrect information.

Any constructive advice would be welcomed.

Many thanks for reading.

Kind regards,

Jatboy

restless6

Womens Aid

gettingtheresometime

Refuge?

How old are the children? Also is there a way she could squirrel money away with you so that she has access to it in an emergency but the husband can't get hold of it?

KRB2725

Tell her to contact Womens Aid, they will be able to help her with everything.

TBagpuss

If she is a victim of domestic abiuse then she may be able to get help via legal aid, in order to get proper legal advice. She will need some evidence of the abuse so she should see her GP, talk to them about the abuse and ask them to refer her to a local domestic violence support organisation.
If there is a physical assault ahe shoudl also contact the police nad get a crime referecne number.

Both of these things help provide evidence of DV which will allow her to acces selgal aid if she is finacially eligable and would alos allow her, if she neds to, to apply to the court in relation to finacial issues or issues around the children without first having to go to mediation with him.

It might be possible for her to apply for an injunction order for her to stay in the hosue and exclude him, so she can live there safely until a final settlment is sorted out.

in relation to bank accoutns the first step is to open an account in her sole nam, with a bank different to that where the joint accoutns are hld. Arrange for her own income to be paid into that account so she has access to money.

If her ex is ruinning up or is likely to ru up overdaaft on the joint account then she can freeze this account, which prevent s the o/d getting any bigger. However, it does freeze all payments in or out so ideally sprt out arrangments for bill payments etc firsmt, or do it just after the mortgage has gone out so that there is time to reorganise. If he is not building up a biger o/d then it may be worth leaving the account open for now.

Credit cards: you can't normally have joint credit cards - the account is normally in the name of one person, (who is liable to the CC company) with others a aditional card holders.
So if the acount is in his name with her as an additional card holder then she won't normnally be liable to the card company (although the debt may well be a matrimonial debt and taken into account in looking at any finacial saettlment betwen the two of them)
If the account i in her name with him as an additional cardholder then she is the one liable to the card comapny and she may wish to tell them to cancel his card and write to the comapny to let them kow not to issue a new card to him or discuss the account with him. Again, the debt would be paret o the finacial picuiture and relevant in looking ant any finacial settlement btween the two of them.

Separating from a violent or abusive partner is dangerous, so make sure that she takes steps to protect herself - tell her to call 999 if she feel toany risk, and consider arranging to be with her when she tells him.

If she decides to leave, then before doing so she should contact any utitlity companies etc where the bills are in joint names, tell them she is leaving and ask them to provide a final bill and close the account (or trnasfer it to his sole name)
However, leaving may make it harder to get the hosue sold so I's recommend that she speaks to a solicitor before she doea anything else.

She can check on the resulotuion or the Law Society Website to find a loacl solicitor with family / divorce experitse, and to find one who offers LEgal Aid so that she can apply if she qualifies.

TBagpuss

If she does chose to stay in the hosue and to ask him to leave / apply for an occupation rode then her local police force may have a 'bobby van' or similar offering advice and reduced price work to improve security at the proeprty so she feels safer. The police can also put a marker on her address on their system so they know that any call out is likely to be urgent.

They will also be able t oput her in contact / refer her to local refuges if she wants / neds to leave and to move to a safe place. Most police forces will have a domestic abuse liason officer or support officer

TBagpuss

if she is not leaving immediately, sugest to her that she give you essential documetns such as passports, birth certificates and photocopies of others such as bank / mortgage statements so hat you can look after these for her and she can access them when she neds them. You could also offer to let her use your adress for corresepondence from her solicitor so letters don't go to the house, and once they are apart, could offer to help out by takeing the children to and from ahndovers so that she does not have to meet her ex, or offer to go with her so she had a witness and support if she is having to see him.

Jatboy

Thanks to everyone who has provided me with some valuable input. I will pass on the necessary information and hopefully it helps her resolve things a lot quicker.

with children aged 5,7 and 9, this is not helping.

once again thanks to all.

gettingtheresometime

I don't know if it's possible but when hubby & I went through a really rough patch many moons ago, I arranged for my mum to have our son one night of the week so he was out of the atmosphere.

Is this something that perhaps you could help with?

Also does she has access to something as simple as a payg phone that her partner doesn't know about ?