Separated, husband's name on mortgage, issues with repayments

HI, I am separated from my husband but his name is still on the deeds and mortgage of the home as we have not as yet gone through a legal separation. I am in the family home trying to cover costs. He is not paying maintenance, but we had been using joint savings to cover spurious costs. He is now refusing to make a withdrawal from our joint savings account to cover mortgage repayments.

Does anyone know what options are open to me, relating to approaching the lender? I am in mediation regarding the separation, but will probably go to court but that could take months and in the meantime, I do not want to start missing payments.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated as my pool of savings that I can access has dwindled and I was counting on a withdrawal to cover mortgage til we sorted things out.

Was in a similar situation. The lender won't deal with you alone either as his name is on mortgage and deeds. To do anything with the mortgage you will need him to fill out a detailed form with expenditure etc and then plenty of signatures required if any change is made to the mortgage terms. If he is anything like my ex he won't do it!

AS you are going through mediation you want to stay away from court and not get into interim maintenance orders etc. Could you perhaps bring the topic of maintenance and the mortgage up in mediation? There will be a 3rd party mediating and he/she could be a help.

If that does not work, I would advise you to speak with your solicitor about the option of him/her writing to his solicitor or write to him/her yourself, detailing what he has/has not paid into the account this year and the position you are in re:mortgage and no access to savings etc. This worked for me - the solicitors can often talk sense into someone who is being unreasonable and it would not look good for him when/if it finally goes to court for the separation...

I understand that through mediation you are trying to go through the non-confrontational route but his behaviour in this case is not reasonable. Best of luck.

Thanks so much for the reply. We had agreed in mediation to take a certain amount out to cover mortgage but then he asked if we could pull back on that and I agreed, as he said it would be no problem to withdraw the money closer to the next dates but is now refusing to go ahead with the plan. I was thinking that about the lender alright and am on two minds on whether to contact them or not. I might just put in a call to my solicitor. Even if he doesn't actually take action on it, at least we'll have a track record of requests. I am sure that the judge would not look too kindly on the situation that he is not providing maintenance and is refusing to use our joint assets to pay off the mortgage. The more I think about it, maybe a letter from my solicitor is the best starting point and see what happens from there. Thanks so much for sharing your experience.

Good idea - have it all on record. Esp if he is not going to pay maintenance on time etc you can have it court ordered and if that does not work they can take it directly from his employer if he is working.

Not sure of your plans, but if you are planning to buy him out of the family home, it may be worth your while writing to your lender and letting them know that you are paying the mortgage in full at the moment. I did this and when it came to them deciding if I was in a position to take the mortgage over on my own, at least they had it on file that I had been paying it on my own for the previous 6 months and that it was not in arrears.
Best of luck - it is all so difficult without having money worries on top of everything else.