Mortgages: Domestic Abuse
The question
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what steps her Department is taking to improve protections and support for victims of domestic abuse who are financially tied to their abuser through joint mortgage or property ownership arrangements.
Answered by Rachel Blake
The Government recognises the devastating impact economic abuse can have on victims, including where joint mortgages or property ownership arrangements are used to cause harm.
Economic abuse was considered as a key theme in the Government’s Financial Inclusion Strategy which was published last year. This reflects the particular challenges victim-survivors can face in accessing financial products and services to help rebuild their lives. The strategy sets out an ambitious programme of initiatives to improve financial inclusion and resilience for underserved groups across the UK, including work to help victim-survivors regain financial independence.
As part of this, we are working with key stakeholders, including industry and the Financial Conduct Authority, to explore how joint mortgages are used as a tool of abuse and how victims and survivors can be better supported. This commitment was also included in the Government’s Violence Against Women and Girls Strategy.
The Government is committed to continuing to work across departments, and with regulators, industry and specialist organisations, to improve the response to economic abuse and support better outcomes for victims. As such, I held a roundtable last month with Ministers across Government, representatives from the financial services sector, the Financial Conduct Authority and Surviving Economic Abuse to discuss the current response to economic abuse. The discussion also covered how joint products, including mortgages, can be used as a tool of abuse.
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