I'm pleased he's finally thinking about leaving her. Echo the advice of the others about credit reports and seeing a professional ASAP!

I'm going through a divorce myself at the moment and it is taking forever. Most of the debts are in my name alone, because at the time my ex's credit score was so poor he couldn't get a loan or anything. The only things in joint name are our overdraft and mortgage.
My ex left me with no warning to move in with a girl he had met from work. He literally left me with all the debt and the mortgage to pay, which was gutting because for a long time I had worked to support him because he "didn't want a job". For a long time, I didn't even know where he was or have a contact number for him, so I had to deal with all the harrassment from companies. My income had effectively halved and I just didn't know what to do.

My solicitor told me that because my ex and I had a "verbal agreement" to both be responsible for the debts, that I could offer to take over his half of the debt in exchange for his half of the property (because the debt and equity in the house are about even). He agreed to it for simplicity's sake, but there was legally no reason for him to. Had he wanted to be a sod, he could have legally and happily held out his hand for half the equity in the house, paid off his share of the overdraft and gone on his merry way and left me with everything else. This way, he basically gets the slate wiped clean but doesn't come out of it with any money, either, but it does mean that I'm not left drowning because I can then remortgage the house with my boyfriend and pay off most of the debt with it. I cannot sell the house without my husband's consent until the transaction is completed and it is in my name, and he has basically said that if I don't want to live there, his new family will, so that's not an option for me at the moment.

I agree that he could do with getting a credit report sorted out to disclose the level of the damage and whether she has applied for credit in his name. A lot of solicitors offer a free initial consultation of half an hour or forty-five minutes, so get him to make an appointment and to take with him a short bullet pointed list of the situation as it stands. I was afraid of waffling my way through my free half hour and not getting to the point, so a list of points to raise helped me a lot.

Good luck to him. It's a long and very stressful road, but hopefully he will come out of the other end in a better situation.

Kel, please don't think in my previous posts I was telling you what to do. Sounds like you owe him so, if you consider that help (back then when you needed it) is now due then give him 500 cash (it's your decision) but I would urge you to not consider it as a loan which has to be repayed. If all you say is true this poor guy is going to have a hard time hanging on to his home let alone paying money back to friends.

Like me & Vicki (and others) have said the best advice you can give is get him to see a divorce lawyer, and the sooner the better.