Divorce - wife needs to remortgage in just her name

[ATM]

Hello

My cousin is separating from his wife. She will stay in the marital home with their 2 children. They have agreed a settlement between themselves where she will pay him an amount from the equity in the house. He has already moved out into a rented flat. She has had problems remortgaging because [she claims] my cousin has some outstanding debts which he has missed payments / defaulted on. I am trying to help him and protect his interests. She has now told him he needs to settle these debts before she can remortgage. This sounds like madness to me. I am anxious she is leading him along. He does have some debts but if he finds a way to pay these - not that I think he can - and then she still doesn't settle up with him then where does that leave him.

I am assuming it should be fairly straight forward for her to remortgage if he has already moved out and the marriage has broken down. The situation with his outstanding debts shouldn't affect this surely?

[harveybobbles]

I'm no mortgage expert, but if she is remortgaging on her own why do his debts come into the equation (unless she is jointly liable for them)?

[ATM]

Not spoken to her but married couples are treated as an individual i think. Or has that changed. Or maybe the bad marks are showing on credit searches at their address. I suspect she can't get enough credit on her own to cover the full amount.

[LordFlathead]

I had this many years ago. My ex ran up a lot of debt in the form of catalogues and credit cards that she took out in her name at our address. When she left they all became apparent. As we were joint borrowers with the mortgage, Experian had our credit file linked. I sought professional advice and was told to contact the debtors explaining that she no longer lived at that address. The collection letters stopped and also Experian removed any binding entries in my credit file. As a result my credit status returned to normal.

I was told specifically that the debt goes with the person and not at the address. This was not always the case but is now unless it has changed.

[big_boz]

You can do something which i believe is called a "notice of dis-association" or similar.

Basically if your cousin gets a credit report he should be able to see any linked addresses and people, he can then write to the credit Ref agencies and ask for them to be struck from his record (provided there are no joint responsibilities).

If his ex does the same and there are no links then she is telling porkie pies, but then what benefit does she get from your cousin paying off his debts? I can't think of any, the new mortgage will be in her name, not his or joint.

Can she actually pass an affordability test for the new mortgage?