Liability for Husband's arrear with ex-partner

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My husband and his ex-wife split in 1993 she defaulted on payments and their marital home was repossed in 1994. The Abbey National have now written to my husband and his ex-wife at our home address requested re-payment of #25k shortfall. As I now have a joint mortgage I want to know if there is any possibility that my income will be taken into account when assessing his ability to pay also is there any risk to my current home given that it is in joint names? I am very worried, my husband and I both work, have two small children and payment of such a large sum of money is inconcievable.

Please help

-- Paula Walsh (paula.walsh@bt.com), June 08, 1999

Answers

The extent to which your income is relevant depends on how intertwined your expenditures are.

I would argue that if your husband has responsibility for outgoings as a result of your relationship then there is no moral reason that those outgoings should instead by paid by you as a result of something that happened to your husband in the past. You would, in effect, be subsidising the Abbey National's thirst for money through no fault of your own.

You can, however, be sure that the Abbey national does not see things this way and you might therefore choose not to draw attention to your part in your husband's financial affairs.

As I explain in other parts of this site, you should not complete and return income and expenditure forms. You should instead serve a subject access rights on the lender and review the results before you do anything else.

Lee

-- Lee (repossession@bigfoot.com), June 09, 1999.


According to news which reaches my ears, new partners should (quite rightly) not now be expected to give up their personal & financial details to lenders and their agents. These details should certainly never be extracted by the lender or their agents without the new partner's permission, or this might well constitue a breach of the Data Protection Act.

-- Eleanor Scott (eleanor.scott@btinternet.com), June 06, 2001.

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