Martin Lewis: Financial abuse, joint accounts and managing money within relationships

I was in a financially (and physically) abusive relationship and even after many years, am still feeling the effects of it. In a nutshell, my ex-husband couldn't control his spending urges. When we first were married, we both had good jobs and earned a good wages. Then when we decided to start a family, I had to give up work, but I made an effort to pay off the two credit cards we had in joint names, knowing that our income was going to halve and our out-goings were going to go up. At that point, we were fine. Then he came home with an expensive watch that he'd bought for me (£1800 in 1993) and had put on one of the credit cards. I told him to take it back but he argued that it was 'an investment'. He would fixate on buying something, and would go from shop to shop trying to find the best price, we had half a dozen coffee machines in the house, four or five cars on the drive. He would start new hobbies and go out and buy all the equipment he needed to do the hobby, (like skis, boots, trousers, jackets etc) and do it once and never again. I would argue with him and tell him that we didn't need whatever it was he wanted to buy, but he controlled the finances and I wasn't allowed any way to view what we had. If I really argued with him, he would get violent. It was back in the day when we had £50 cheque guarantee cards and cheque books, and that was all I was allowed (to go food shopping with) to have. Because of his well-paid job, banks and loan companies were prepared to lend him money. He had been left some money by a relative before we married and I never knew how much and also when it had run out. So whenever he bought something and I complained, he told me that the money had come from this legacy. In fact, by the time I managed to find out the extent of the debts, the money had long gone and we had debts of over £100,000 and didn't have a home or mortgage to show for it. (When we married, I had a small house and a mortgage, but he insisted that we sold it and he spent the money on cars instead of using it as a deposit on a bigger house for us). If I complained too much, threatened to leave, he would sneer at me and say that I would never leave him as I had nowhere to go and he would make sure I had no money to go with. Most of the loans were in his name, but the credit cards and bank account and bank loan (as it was a joint account) were in joint names. I asked him to separate the bank account so that it was solely in his name, he said he would, but he didn't and the over-draft continued to grow as the bank loan installents couldn't be paid and they put charges into the account (I found out afterwards that they charged each of us £25 for bouncing the loan payment). The over-draft soared and then creditors started to get agitated. He then went missing. Having told his father he felt suicidal, the police went looking for him and I had to view a body they had pulled from a river which matched his description and the length of time he'd been missing, (it wasn't him). He had in fact, gone on holiday with a woman he'd been seeing behind my back, (I found out a long time later when he married her after I kicked him out). Whilst he was missing, I got in touch with a debt consolidation agency and by the time he came back, had started to sort things out with the agency's assistance. The money that they allowed us for food per month, he viewed as 'spare' money, and went out and spent it on nothing. I had got a part time job, my own bank account and was feeding us all and doing my best with other expenses like nursery fees with my wages and child benefit. But I couldn't earn enough to keep us all going and started to sink myself financially. His answer to that was that I should become a sex worker...apparently it would solve all our problems! It got to the point when I had £5 for food to feed us all for a month, and he went out with his mates one night, taxi there and back and a night's drinking. On his return, I told him it was over and kicked him out. He then refused to pay anything towards the children, it took the CSA 11 months to get him to start paying and I spent years, fighting him and the CSA every month to get him to pay. I used to sell the kid's out-grown clothes and toys so that I could buy bigger ones in the charity shop. His employer assisted him in avoiding paying, I got abusive texts, phone calls and letters from his family and death threats and threats to have me beaten up by his mates over the phone. He got a Court Order to say that he was entitled to have contact with his kids and he abused that contact by phoning me all hours of the day and night, him and his new wife giggling down the phone at me, or just ringing and ringing on and off all evening. He didn't pay the debts, he told everyone that I had forced him to sign the loan agreements and I had issues with the Bank too, as he wouldn't pay, they chased me. I struggled financially, even though I got full time work, as I had accrued debts in my own name whilst we were still together, trying to make ends meet. Then I had to pay Court Costs as we ended up in Court. It has taken me years to shake off the financial aftermath of being married to him. I would never again have a joint account with anyone.

In late 2006, I plucked up the courage to seek help from a Solicitor after a particularly life threatening domestic violence and abuse incident with my ex partner that had occurred in the presence of some of our children who were aged 1 to 9 years old.

The same day I was in an emergency court hearing and the Judge ordered an immediate anti-molestation and injunction against my ex partner, with powers of arrest if he breached this. As it was an emergency ex-parte hearing, my ex wasn’t present in Court so Court Official went to his office and served him with the Court Order, never to return home.

I thought this would end the domestic violence and abuse, but this made it worse and I continued to face not just physical and verbal, but threats to kill, financial abuse and false allegations.

Within weeks I discovered my name was forged on documents that enabled a remortgage on the family home, leaving me to face homelessness or struggling with an expensive mortgage. My family agreed to assist with mortgage payments. Although a man of considerable means, he refused to pay any child maintenance ever. I initially used credit cards and my overdraft facilities to survive, however I couldn’t sustain this debt and was eventually forced to claim a number of benefits such as income support, child tax credits, child benefit, council tax benefits, as well as receive financial assistance from family and friends.

Fast forward 2019 the unpaid child maintenance has an outstanding amount of £106,000, I gave up bothering to claim it years ago. This is another form of economic abuse.

Whilst trying to deal with the Mortgage fraud I contacted the Police. I quickly discovered that if a stranger had forged my signature to obtain a mortgage, it would be considered fraud and the law would have have mechanisms in place for me to be considered a victim. Unfortunately, if it is a domestic partner involved, in those days it wasn’t acknowledged or recognised as fraud and nothing was achieved. I was considered lucky to remain in my home and fortunate that the mortgage lender Kensington Mortgage Company allowed me to pay for the mortgage. However, despite paying and disclosing to Kensington that I was a domestic abuse victim, this was deemed as challenging the validity of the mortgage. They stated I was irrelevant, a third party and I was only eligible to pay for the mortgage, but not to know how much, how long for, the interest rate and more importantly the solicitors charges added to the account to deal with me challenging that economic abuse and forgery was wrong.

I pleaded and cried to Kensington for many years trying to explain that my family were frustrated paying off the debt of the man that abused me, but not being told how much. In the end they repossessed the house, their agents looted my belongings and denied my requests to allow the financial Ombudsman Service to assist, assess the situation and find a resolution so that I could keep the house.

Thankfully, now MP’s like Rosie Duffield will stand up in Parliament and explain what it is like to be a survivor of domestic abuse. The Government is including economic abuse in the Domestic Abuse Bill and I am now getting support from the only charity that deals specifically with economic abuse - Surviving Economic Abuse. I feel Kensington, The FCA and The FOS didn’t help me in the past. Now Surviving Economic Abuse is speaking to the FOS about my case, I hope others get support and help going forward. My abuser treated me dreadfully, but I say Kensington Mortgage Company and the Financial Services Industry abused me more.