Isabela* (not her real name) was with her abusive partner for seven years. When she left him, she thought that would be the end of it. However, she experienced post-separation economic abuse that left her homeless, destitute, and put her career in the financial industry at risk. Now she works with the charity Surviving Economic Abuse to raise awareness and fight for change.
When I left the individual who had made my life miserable, I felt a sense of relief. The relationship was very toxic. I was walking on eggshells all the time. Everything seemed to always be my fault, and I felt like I was treated like a slave.
I worked long hours and would come home and be expected to do all the cooking and the cleaning. I financially supported him when he kept losing his job, when he needed help paying his part of the bills or when he needed money for anything. I thought this was what you did in a relationship. However, little did I know that I was experiencing economic abuse and that my life was going to get a lot harder.
We had a home with a joint mortgage that I had to leave to stay safe. I couldn’t afford to find somewhere to rent, so I had no choice but to move back to my parents’ home.
I thought this would be the first step to getting away from him once and for all. But he refused to pay his share of the mortgage, sell, or leave the property.
When I initially rang the high street bank we had the mortgage with, they said that we were jointly responsible for the mortgage payments and I still had to pay – and not just my half but also his share if he didn’t pay. I started working lots of overtime just to be able to afford the mortgage and the bills in full.
Sometimes, I was left with only £60 a month to my name. I felt alone, and it impacted my mental health significantly. I was so anxious that I struggled to leave the front door of my parents’ home alone.
I instructed a solicitor to write letters to him to convince him to sell, pay, or leave the property. However, he just used this to verbally abuse me and to prolong the stalemate, knowing that it would cost me loads in solicitors’ fees.
I was told that going to court to receive a piece of paper to confirm I could sell the property without his consent would cost £15,000, so I had no option but to let my property go into repossession.
This would significantly impact my credit scoring, imprison me for years financially, and potentially affect my career in finance, but it was my only option.
I let the high street bank know of my situation and that I was going to stop paying the mortgage, but as soon as that first monthly mortgage payment was missed, I was bombarded with calls asking why I was not paying. I had to repeat my story over and over, crying on the phone. The bank always said that they would put a note and a support flag on the system, but it was months until that happened.
When I was moved over to a specialist support team, I was told every week that the repossession was going to happen soon. Little did I know it was all on hold. I felt like my life had shattered around me.
I was also asked to provide evidence of domestic abuse. I was given no guidance by the bank on what document they required. I ended up sending them everything I had. This then made me anxious, in case the documentation was accidentally provided to him. For data protection reasons, it was not, but I was given no reassurance about this.
It took over three years for my property to be repossessed. Throughout those years, the bank caused me so many problems. I constantly had to chase them for updates. I work in the financial industry so I knew what they should have been doing to support their customers, but there was no support to me. This is one of the reasons I continued to chase the bank and continued to fight to ensure I got what I needed, but not every victim-survivor would know what to do.
Following the repossession, my credit rating was ruined. It was so bad that I could not get even a phone contract in my name. The one silver lining was that while the debt from the repossession was large, the bank agreed to write it off.
After multiple complaints, I ended up going to the Financial Ombudsman Service. They contacted the bank and got them to agree to amend my credit score.
Since my credit scoring was restored to reflect my creditworthiness and not the abuse, I have now been able to rebuild my life. I have been able to obtain a loan, get a decision in principle for a mortgage, and rent a property. All the things that I would not have been able to do for years, if not ever again.
Once the property was repossessed and my credit scoring rectified, I thought that I would be free, that the nightmare would be over. Now I am finding out about debt he coerced me into, that I knew nothing about. However, I will continue to fight until I am fully free.
My experience has motivated me to fight for change so that other survivors don’t have to go through what I did. That’s why I work with the charity Surviving Economic Abuse to improve how banks and building societies support their customers who are experiencing economic abuse.
The charity has just launched its new Banking Support Directory, a great tool that victim/survivors can use to know what support their bank offers and the best way to contact them. This tool will help so many victim/survivors because I found that it can be a struggle just to find the number to call to ensure you are through to the right department.
But there is so much more change that I want to see in the financial industry, and that’s why the work I do with Surviving Economic Abuse to raise awareness and transform how banks respond is so necessary. Change is so important to ensure every victim/survivor can rebuild their financial lives freely and easily without being imprisoned by the credit scoring system.
If you are worried you might be experiencing economic abuse or a family member or friend might be, visit the Surviving Economic Abuse website for further information on accessing support: https://survivingeconomicabuse.org/i-need-help/
Follow Surviving Economic Abuse on Instagram here.
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