Welcome to the forum brickers1.

I'm afraid that in connection to a joint mortgage (or a joint bank loan or overdraft) it isn't the case that each of you are responsible for paying 50% of the debt owed.

The principle is one of "joint and several liability", which basically means that each of you can be held responsible for paying the full amount owed.

The mortgage lender is likely to receive a dividend from the trust deed in due course which will reduce the debt, but both before and after this the lender is entitled to seek full repayment of any amount owed at any point in time from you.

With this in mind I think you'll need to monitor what (if any) actions the mortgage lender takes and to be prepared to liaise with them if they wish to review your current arrangement.

Sorry that I cannot give you more positive news.

Hi brickers1

I'm sorry if this isn't what you want to hear, but I'm afraid the bank are entitled to chase you for the full shortfall, not just half.

If your husband enters into a Trust Deed then he should end up paying a proportion of that debt through his Trust Deed, but typically this might be as little as 10p in the £, with the remainder having to be paid by you.

Hopefully the bank will continue to accept your payments rather than take further action, but I'm afraid that it is likely that this debt may take longer for you to clear than you first thought.

Of course, depending upon your situation it may be that you would benefit from getting advice about your options and whether you would benefit from going down a similar route to your husband.

A huge thanks for responding to my post ...

I'm debt free(ish) and own my own (small) company I have no need to enter into a Trust Deed I just dont want to be paying my exhusbands debts.

You mentioned that i may have options open to me to try and protect myself ? Where would i recieve the best advice ?

Thanks in advance

Hello brickers1.

I can totally understand your viewpoint, but the technical reality is that this is your debt and the bank can pursue you for the full amount.

Protecting yourself is really going to come down to keeping an arrangement in place with the mortgage lender that is affordable for you and acceptable to them.

I would have to echo the above comments. Unfortunately it is something we deal with regularly in sequestrations where following a split, one party enters in to an insolvent arrangement and the other does not. The property may have to be dealt with if, between both parties, the whole mortgage is not being fully paid each month. Unless you keep up the full payment the home may be at risk. I would advise you to contact your mortgage provider or solicitor for advice. Perhaps you could purchase your husbands share of the property from his Trustee? This would remove your partner from the equation completely.

I think this is a shortfall debt from a previous mortgage Rob.

Hi. Does this mean that if there is a joint debt and one party enters into a PTD...then the other party becomes liable for the full amount and the PTD person has no liability toward the joint debt after discharge....whilst the other party may then, as a direct result, need to make more payments over a longer period and perhaps beyond the discharge date of the PTD person?

IE : You could end up with a situation where a joint debt becomes the sole responsibility of one person and the creditor has no authority to chase the other party because of PTD discharge?

That is correct Thinkingofthefuture.

Anyone who is party to a joint loan might be held fully responsible for the repayment of it if, in any circumstances (not just trust deeds), the other party wasn't paying.

You accept this when you take out a joint loan. It's also part of the security that may make a lender decide to issue a joint loan.

Thanks TDA. Just so im clear....does this cover secured joint debts too? Thanks again.

It does... the very same concept.

Worth bearing in mind that a guarantor can be deemed responsible for entire debt too.

It's interesting, but in the last 3-4 months I've been seeing a lot more joint debts as well as debts where there is a guarantor in place.

As mentioned above, the debt will be dealt with in terms of the Trust Deed, however it does leave the other person liable for the balance in full.

Mark