Husband accrued 50k debt without telling me

shinelight1

Thanks everyone. I really appreciate your help and guidance and will go through the SOA and complete. We have all the figures as husband has already worked out a budget based on repayments for a second charge (should we go down that route). The issue is that repaying over a longer time would be quite affordable for us and allow us to meet our quite shorter term obligations for the family, whilst knocking off more of our mortgage. If we go down other routes (I don’t know what they would be? Surely with our incomes, the loan company would insist on quite a high payment from us) then aside from it also taking a very long time to pay off the debts, we wouldn’t have enough monthly to survive. I realise a second charge or extending our current mortgage is storing up for longer term but we’re fairly confident that (nothing unforeseen withstanding) our monthly financial poaition should be healthier in say 5 years and we could pay more off. But we need to get through these years. 

elsien

shinelight1 said:

elsien said:

Just to doublecheck that your mother-in-law is no longer with you and he is not still paying top up fees. Third party ups are voluntary. There is no obligation on anyone to pay them and if he was told that there was he was misinformed. I do wonder if there’s a complaint to be made there depending on who gave him that information? 

Yes MIL died in 2023. He was paying top up fees for 5 years. The care home was very cheap comparatively and apparently he was told there were no other spaces available in a non self funded home, as she hadn’t reached the threshold. Personally I also want to make a complaint but unsure who to do so. The council are unlikely to want to know as she was self funded and husband says hw signed a contract which agreed to the top up fees. So pretty sure we’re shafted on that front unless any lawyer knows more!

Were the local authority involved to at this point? If he had refused to pay the top up, which he would’ve been entitled to do, then they would have either had to discuss moving her to somewhere else or if there really were no other available options which met her needs the local authority should pay the top up themselves.
A complaint would probably rely on having proof that he was misinformed.
So if there was a social worker who told him that he would make a formal complaint to the Local authority. I suppose my question is, what has he got to lose by giving it a try?

Grumpelstiltskin

We can only advise you not to go down the second charge route, it is up to you to decide what to do, but be sure you have considered all possible eventualities before you make a decision.

RAS

It's really important to see the SOA and check for other options.

For cards, you need to add APRs, end dates for any deals and reversion APRs, current payments and limits. And who's the debtor
For loans, APRs and end dates. 
For overdrafts, definitely APRs.

Do you have any joint accounts?

EssexHebridean

shinelight1 said:

Thanks everyone. I really appreciate your help and guidance and will go through the SOA and complete. We have all the figures as husband has already worked out a budget based on repayments for a second charge (should we go down that route). The issue is that repaying over a longer time would be quite affordable for us and allow us to meet our quite shorter term obligations for the family, whilst knocking off more of our mortgage. If we go down other routes (I don’t know what they would be? Surely with our incomes, the loan company would insist on quite a high payment from us) then aside from it also taking a very long time to pay off the debts, we wouldn’t have enough monthly to survive. I realise a second charge or extending our current mortgage is storing up for longer term but we’re fairly confident that (nothing unforeseen withstanding) our monthly financial poaition should be healthier in say 5 years and we could pay more off. But we need to get through these years. 

See that bit in bold? That's the problem. What if something unforeseen DOES happen? The additional borrowing against your home could then be the difference between losing the roof over your head, and not. On the flip side, if the debt stays unsecured, and you can no longer afford to make the payments, you simply stop paying. Your credit file might end up trashed but your home remains intact. 

We none of us know what our future holds, we've seen all sorts here, even among the "close family" members of our community here, from spouses having overnight life changing illnesses or injuries, to completely unexpected lost jobs, and even the completely out of the blue death of a partner - always something which is going to be a complete tragedy clearly, but all the worse when that also leaves the household in a financial hole. 

Good advice on completing the SOA - I would also add that you need to make it as open and honest as you can, and that it  needs to reflect where you are at right now - not what you think we expect to see, or what you believe you "ought" to be spending or saving. An aspirational SOA helps nobody - it means we can't offer the best suggestions and it stops you being truthful with yourselves too and so means that in fact you can't actually see where you are at! 

gwynlas

Please do not take on a second charge.
You can manage £65K of debt with a DMP

ManyWays

This may not feel much consolation, but this debt was taken out for well-intentioned family reasons. Foolish possibly, and he should have told you about it, but he didn't waste it on wine, women, or gambling. And you know this will never happen again. 

As everyone has said, don't rush into things and it would be mad to consolidate credit card debt at 0%.

the loans your husband too - who are the lenders, the amounts and the interest rates?

I am not so totally opposed to a larger mortgage or a second charge if the rate is VERY reasonable, what are you being quoted? 

When does your current mortgage fix end, what is the house worth and how large is the mortgage? 

Do you have a car on finance, will you own that at the end or is it PCP?

How solid are both your jobs? Are your pension provisions good?

2 children around uni age, if they havent yet gone, can you encourage to go somewhere local so they could live at home? 

shinelight1

elsien said:

shinelight1 said:

elsien said:

Just to doublecheck that your mother-in-law is no longer with you and he is not still paying top up fees. Third party ups are voluntary. There is no obligation on anyone to pay them and if he was told that there was he was misinformed. I do wonder if there’s a complaint to be made there depending on who gave him that information? 

Yes MIL died in 2023. He was paying top up fees for 5 years. The care home was very cheap comparatively and apparently he was told there were no other spaces available in a non self funded home, as she hadn’t reached the threshold. Personally I also want to make a complaint but unsure who to do so. The council are unlikely to want to know as she was self funded and husband says hw signed a contract which agreed to the top up fees. So pretty sure we’re shafted on that front unless any lawyer knows more!

Were the local authority involved to at this point? If he had refused to pay the top up, which he would’ve been entitled to do, then they would have either had to discuss moving her to somewhere else or if there really were no other available options which met her needs the local authority should pay the top up themselves.
A complaint would probably rely on having proof that he was misinformed.
So if there was a social worker who told him that he would make a formal complaint to the Local authority. I suppose my question is, what has he got to lose by giving it a try?

Yes that’s what I’d like to do but husband is saying he wasn’t misinformed. Unusually they didn’t have a social worker due to being self funded he says. He is now obviously kicking himself that he didn’t refuse at the time. In some small fairness to him , his dad also died very quickly in 2015, we had hospice and care home visits with him. So I think husband was just overwhelmed - an only child of elderly parents, one of whom lived until 107, very rarer 

RAS

Right now the important thing is to get the Statement of Affairs sorted out, make sure your day to day banking is not with one that has any relationship with one to whom you owe money and see if there are ways to get this paid back without wrecking credit records.

shinelight1

ManyWays said:

This may not feel much consolation, but this debt was taken out for well-intentioned family reasons. Foolish possibly, and he should have told you about it, but he didn't waste it on wine, women, or gambling. And you know this will never happen again. 

As everyone has said, don't rush into things and it would be mad to consolidate credit card debt at 0%.

the loans your husband too - who are the lenders, the amounts and the interest rates?

I am not so totally opposed to a larger mortgage or a second charge if the rate is VERY reasonable, what are you being quoted? 

When does your current mortgage fix end, what is the house worth and how large is the mortgage? 

Do you have a car on finance, will you own that at the end or is it PCP?

How solid are both your jobs? Are your pension provisions good?

2 children around uni age, if they havent yet gone, can you encourage to go somewhere local so they could live at home? 

Thankyou for your kindness. It’s unbelievable how much this helps! 

Quote for second charge is 7ish pc. IFA suggests when our first mortgage fixed rate is next up (1 is July 2026 at 1.5 pc) to try to amalgamate second charge at that stage with current mortgage. 

Second part of mortgage is at 4.5pc with same lender and fixed term ends 2028. So not much to be done with that one as exit fees too high. 

House is worth £500k with 260k mortgage outstanding. 18 ish years left on mortgage. 

Minimal since on car, £3k left to pay over the year. We do not have HP. Solid jobs for many years and hope to continue that way. Pensions the same but to be honest we have to just go with that for now. Quite possibly would downsize house in years to come and take any equity to add to our pensions. 

Re children, quite complicated for one due to the course they are taking being long and you go where you get a place. Other one we would have to juggle with to hopefully see it out. 

Another option on the table is to lower the second charge and continue to pay off 0pc cards (we would not add anything further to these) but that depends on cost of a reduced charge. 

I can’t see anything positive that anyone has said about a second charge but husband is keen due to the lower monthly costs right now and more monthly control of our budget, even if more expensive in long run. 

Also ill be doing the SOA later.