Husband remortgaged house for drugs and sex workers

Andrea* says it was only when she and her ex-husband separated that she discovered he had remortgaged their house to pay for his drug and sex worker habit.

Her name was not initially on the mortgage because they bought their house in the 1980s, "when women counted for even less".

"I didn't find out the extent of his financial abuse until we divorced 20 years later."

She said she thought they were struggling financially for years.

"We often barely made it for food and interest rates were 17 percent. When we finally separated in 2001 he told everyone how generous he was in giving me the house. Then I found out that after 16 years of struggling to make repayments we owed 100 percent more on it than we initially borrowed.

"He had remortgaged twice and just spent the money while I was trying to feed and clothe two kids."

She said it was so overwhelming it was "quite literally unbelievable".

Andrea said her ex had his salary split and half put into another account that she did not know existed.

"As far as I was concerned he didn't ever get a pay rise in a decade. And my whole salary went into that joint account. I don't think the bank would have told me that he had another account. That's the information that would have helped but I had no way of knowing."

Another woman, Amy*, had more recent experience of financial abuse.

"For me it was a partner using me as financial support and employing psychological abuse when I questioned it. I was the main breadwinner. My income was used to pay the bills. His much smaller income was used for him."

She said that put her in a difficult position when they separated, too.

"I still pay for more than my share of things for the kids but that's because I don't want them to miss out and can't be [bothered] arguing with a narcissist ... unfortunately relationship property laws, that would have been designed to be fair to women who gave up their careers to care for kids, can be used by useless grifters to screw their exes. I know so many women who've had this happen,

"Possibly the worst part is my ex tried to frame it as 'progressive' that I was supporting him."

Research suggests about 15 percent of women experience financial or economic abuse from a partner during their lives.

Research by charitable lending organisation Good Shepherd earlier this year showed 60 percent of women seeking help from Women's Refuge had experienced it.

Some of the most common behaviours were taking or controlling access to victims' income or savings, preventing their input in financial decisions, preventing socialising by stopping them spending on fuel or phone, making a victim liable for debt, damaging their financial security and manipulating how much child support they could be given in the event of a separation.

Chief executive Emma Saunders said many people did not realise the extent of the abuse until later on, as in Andrea's case.

Her organisation had heard from one woman who was only allowed the use of a phone when she was in labour and was not allowed to spend more than $20 a day.

Good Shepherd and the Financial Services Federation (FSF) said this week they were developing a code of practice that could be used by financial service providers that wanted to support survivors of family violence economic abuse.

"Our clients tell us organisations' frontline staff often don't understand this form of abuse or know how to help and they often have to navigate many different policies and procedures," Saunders said.

Sometimes that allowed abuse to continue despite a chance to help to stop it, she said.

"We know organisations like those that belong to FSF are committed to supporting customers experiencing harm and vulnerabilities, so working together to develop a code of practice allows us to draw on our expertise to create a code of practice that we hope will ultimately help victims," FSF chief executive Lyn McMorran said.

Jake Lilley, a spokesperson for FinCap, the network of financial mentors, said it strongly supported the Good Shepherd work.

"We are regularly noting economic harm caused by the intimate partners of those supported by financial mentors. Twice as many women work with a financial mentor compared to men and this is likely one of the reasons behind that," he said.

"I regularly hear from financial mentors who are concerned about loans taken out in a woman's name by an ex-partner, the creditor is pursuing the woman for the debt but she has never had use of the car or other item purchased. That is probably the clearest and most common example of the issue shared with me, but wherever there is debt there is potential for creditors to enable this form of family harm.

"We're looking at how we can best support the work Good Shepherd is doing to address this form of family harm.

"FinCap recommends more work from government departments to align with the relevant guidance in the policy framework for debt to government. We've also recommended government require minimum standards for essential service organisations to appropriately recognise and respond to family harm."

* Surnames have not been included to protect victims' privacy.

Where to get help for family violence

Women's Refuge: 0800 733 843

It's Not OK: 0800 456 450

Shine: 0508 744 633

Victim Support: 0800 842 846

HELP Call 24/7 (Auckland): 09 623 1700, (Wellington): 04 801 6655 - push 0 at the menu

The National Network of Family Violence Services NZ has information on specialist family violence agencies.

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