Overview

One in eight UK women who held a joint mortgage in the last two years experienced joint mortgage economic abuse from a current or former partner – equivalent to over 750,000 people, according to a new report by Surviving Economic Abuse (SEA). This form of abuse is locking victim-survivors into a joint mortgage with the abuser and out of a safe and secure home.

Joint mortgages are a form of secured lending typically with joint and several liability. This means that under current laws, both people are jointly and separately responsible for paying the whole debt, whether they live in the property or not, and any contractual changes to the mortgage require both parties’ consent. This stands even in cases of economic abuse, including in cases where the perpetrator is using the joint mortgage to cause financial harm to the victim-survivor, including long after they have fled.

Economic abuse is a form of domestic abuse as defined in the Domestic Abuse Act 2021. It includes the perpetrator controlling a partner or ex-partner's money and finances, and the things money can buy, to prevent victim-survivors from accessing safety and freedom.

Victim-survivors have shared that perpetrators are using joint mortgages as a form of economic abuse, often alongside other economically abusive behaviours, to control them and cause economic harm. 

Key recommendations

1. Alongside UK Finance, we are calling for the government to urgently convene a cross-government task force on economic abuse.

2. For financial services firms to consider actionable steps they could take to stop perpetrators from using mortgage products and services to cause harm and offer support to victim-survivors. 

3. For the regulator to clarify and strengthen the regulatory basis for financial services firms to avoid causing foreseeable harm to economic abuse victim-survivors through perpetrators’ abuse of joint mortgage products and services. 

4. For the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions to review and amend current universal credit, including housing benefit, eligibility criteria, so that victim-survivors with a mortgage are not denied the means to flee abusers and access safe accommodation for them and their children. 

5. For the Lord Chancellor to ensure the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) will work alongside relevant stakeholders to improve economic abuse victim-survivors’ experiences and outcomes in financial remedy proceedings.

6. Alongside UK Finance, we are calling for government leadership in developing an industry-wide approach to coerced debt, credit reporting, and restoration in economic abuse cases.