Partner's Debt

[nautique]

My partner has bad debt from before I met her, I didn't know about this debt. I bought my house Jan 07 which completed Feb 07. In Feb 07 (before completion) the girl I was seeing (now my partner) became pregant. We now live together with our son. She just received a letter demanding repayment which we can not afford and as she doesn't work installments are virtually impossible. They said they won't take installments and will start bankruptcy on her and it will affect my house even though it is in my name, the deposit was mine and I pay the mortgage. Is this correct?

[Ethel]

It won't affect your name, but your address will be flagged up by credit checks, as she has 'an association' with you.

[nautique]

They say they can use the house against the debt.

[themas]

1. Do you have any joint debts - such as a joint mortgage or current account? If you do then your credit records will be associated. If you don't, then they shouldn't be as you are not married.

2. Whether the mortgage is joint or not, the bankruptcy Official Receiver will want to identify your partner's share of the equity. If you can show that you have made all the payments & that your partner has only lived there a short time then the likelihood is that her share of the equity will be considered to be very low or nil. (I've known of a case where a partner was living with the houseowner & making some payments to household bills & the mortgage, but was deemed not to have any equity interest because the payments were considered to be no different fom what would have had to be paid if living alone in rented accommodation.)

3. She should do an income & expenditure statement for them, & offer �1 per month if she can't afford more. A lot of these outfits use threats without any intention of carrying them out. It would cost them more than �1000 to make her bankrupt & they are not likely to spend that if they realise it is most unlikely to get repaid.

[nautique]

Thank you, we will do what you state in 3.

We have no joint debts or accounts, I pay mortgage and its all in my name. I pay all utilities and bills apart from the electricity which she paid for a few months as I didn't have time to setup when we moved in due to work, I paid the money to her and it is now billed to me. As she doesn't work and looks after our son she has no income and I put money in her account every month.

We have lived in the house together for nearly two years.

We tried to agree a monthly payment. They said they wouldn't accept a monthly payment and we had 48hrs to pay in full or they would start court proceedings. The debt is �10k but they would take �6.5k.