Introduction to my nightmare

Hopefully i have found somewhere i can come for support and advice.

I met my wife C in 1995, we started living together almost immediately. In 2004 whilst we we splitting up i bought a house. We reconciled and she moved in again with me. A year later our first son arrived and we got married in 2006. She was never added to the mortgage. Our second son was born in 2008.

2 years ago i was forced into an iva due to a large debt built up on my credit cards etc by us both.

for several years i provided the majority of the child care as i changed shifts to work mainly late shifts. This kept child care costs to a minimum.

A year ago C moved out with the 2 boys. I got to see them most days as they lived around the corner. After 6 months i moved on and started a relationship with another girl. I thought the best thing to do was to move out and let my kids live in their home again.

So to the real problems (no doubt many here will recognise them).

- i am currently paying the full mortgage for the house my wife and kids live in, about about 30% of my net wage.

- i also pay another 30% of my wages towards my IVA (debts in my name but in essence debt we both built up) and a joint secured loan (this only has about 15 months to go before being cleared).

I really want to be able to remove my financial ties to C in respect of the house. I have no problem paying the £500 a month for the mortgage / maintenance. I want to provide a roof over my kids head but don''t want to be tied to her in this way. I cant give her the money to pay towards the mortgage as i don''t trust her to pay the mortgage, leaving me liable for the defaulted payments. With the money i give her, her wages and the usual credits she can afford the mortgage. I doubt my mortgage lender will allow her to take on the mortgage due to the issues with my IVA and the impact upon her own credit history.

What are the options here ???


I am in no financial position to afford to pay for legal help due to the IVA i am paying off (no spare cash).

Sorry for my rambling folks. I just have an awful mess to get my head around. This is nothing i have ever experienced before and dont know where to start.

Bartimus

Yes, I see.
Can I ask you, for a start,
(a) Is the house in joint names ?
(b) May I assume that it is contemplated that there will be a divorce ?
(c) Have proceedings yet commenced ?
I can understand your worries about your wife not paying the mortgage. However I suspect that such a suggestion would get a frosty reception from the Court. They would probably give you a penny lecture to the effect that she must be treated as a responsible individual.
It''s exactly the same with housing benefit. Sometimes the benefit is not applied in paying the rent ; in effect a misappropriation of public money.
Any Court order should ( and almost certainly will ) provide that your wife would be responsible for the mortgage payments. But if she does not, you could be sued.
However, there remains the issue of what is to be done with the family home.
It would be unusual for you to have no interest in it at all, even if it cannot be realised for some time. Would you care to share with me how much equity there is in the family home ?
If you can deal with these questions first, I will refer you to some sources of information which I hope you may find helpful.
But first of all, I have attached a file which you may wish to read.
LMM

The house is in my name only, as is the mortgage.

We will be divorced...

Proceedings have not started yet. I am off to see a solicitor for some initial advice. I have not had any previous insight into divorce or separation so this is new to me.

There is probably about £30k to £40k in equity in the house.

Thanks for the information in the attachment. No surprises in there tbh.