I can see this situation is ethically difficult – wondered if anyone else had experience?

I don’t want people in this to be identified so I will be a bit careful with my wording.

My housemate is trying to support a friend. The friend married 4 years back. The partner was/is deemed by everyone to be a really nice person and everyone is very happy for them. The partner had a history of well controlled bi-polar illness and was stable for many many years. Both parties sold thier homes to buy a joint home which they live in and the couple both work but are on fairly low wages.

Unfortunately due to complications that are not the fault of anyone, the drugs controlling the bi-polar had to be changed. As a result the partner has destabilised and is now verbally aggressive, hostile, selfish and generally not very nice at all and very manipulative – and has been this way for some months. This is not their fault as they are ill and can’t help it. Unfortunately though they have had to be sectioned under the mental health act and have been in hospital for most of the months mentioned, with some day release.

The medical people are trying to find drugs that are acceptable and hope the partner will stabalise at some point in the future, but it has been months now of erratic nasty behaviour and no sign of improvement yet.

The problem is that the partner is running up thousands and thousands of pounds of debt and the household is not well off. The partner has arranged for other mentally ill 3rd parties to empty bank accounts so that the partner can get lots of cash and the partner is running up massive credit card debts through mail order as they have access to the internet when home and via phones/internet etc while in the mental hospital. The family/couple cannot afford to pay such debts.

The friend has been told it is illegal to try to stop the bi-polar party from having financial freedom, even though they are sectioned, as even though judgement is impaired they are still entitled to behave anyway they choose with their money. I can see it is not desirable to be in the age where people were inappropriately ‘put away’ with no access to help or the outside world, so this subject of restraint financially is a very difficult one. However of course if they end up loosing the house or paying off debts for literally years, the whole household will suffer. The friend is afraid of denying the ill partner anything openly as doing so brings about such aggressive verbal hostility. The ill partner has obtained a solicitor to ‘protect themselves’ and is threatening divorce if they do not get everything they want when they want it.

Is there anyway the friend can protect himself from the debts the partner is running up? He has been told if it gets so bad they separate legally he will loose his investment in the house and be homeless as the mentally ill partner will have rights because they are ill, so will get to keep the house. Will he end up long term paying off thier debts as being married he is responsible for joint debts?

I do not know where he is getting the advice from as the health service are offering no emotional support to the belegured friend at all.

My housemate is struggling to provide support to the friend as the friend is finding the emotional and financial stress increasingly overwhelming and also the temporary or otherwise ‘loss’ of the person he loves.

I have given my housemate the contact details for Mind and its legal department but I am not sure the friend is able to cope with or seek advice due to their own difficulties in coping now its getting so bad.

My housemate can only offer limited support other than by phone as his friend lives in the north and its not viable to travel there to visit due to costs and distance.

Anyone got any constructive advice legal or otherwise?
Its such a tragic situation as they were such a happy couple.

Oh my goodness what a sad situation.

I don’t have any legal advice, but I think contacing Mind would be a good start. There may be some support through them for partners/family coping with a person with severe mental health issues.

In terms of liability for debt, he cannot be held liable for debt that the partner runs up in their name only, he can only be held liable if his name is on it or if the debt is secured against a joint asset (house, car etc).

Yes. The partner has older children who also live in the house. All these people will suffer hugely if there are unmanageable debts. I wonder if the friend will end up in a breakdown himself.

Solicitor – ward of court / adult guardianship proceedings, since they’re not capable of managing their own affairs?

Yes, I wondered that. I think the friend is afraid the partner will start divorce proceedings if this is done and the partner knows this result is not wanted by the friend, so it can be used as a control technique.

I have no idea if the partner ever stabilises, how they will review the present situation or if they will ever become the same person as during the marriage.

Its got so that the friend is afraid to visit the partner without someone else going as well.

Would they be able to start divorce proceedings though if they were made a ward of court? Surely that would stop them from doing major things that could end up with long term consequences when they are not able to exercise proper judgement?

Contact Mind, they will have experience in this area.

I would guess that if they’re sucessful in getting a guardianship in place, the partner would be unable to launch divorce proceedings of their own accord ❓

edit: aha – appears little miss panda and I are thinking the same way.

I have passed on the contact details of Mind. I dont know if the friend can cope with approaching them. There is such fear of antagonising the partner more.

I wish the NHS was offereing more mental support to the friend as it seems to me there is also a mental wellbeing issue there, as well as for the partner.

Maybe I should email Mind and ask them. Its hard to know how much to directly interfere. Its one thing to ask for experience on here and somehow another to start asking authoritive bodies on behalf of someone I am not friends with myself.

If it looks too invasive, I think the friend might get angry with my housemate, as friend is under so much stress and so scared of loosing everything if they ‘cross’ the partner.

I suppose there is very little I can do to help, I just wish I could. I have offered to speak to the friend as I had a verbally abusive relationship with an ill person in my family and know what it is like to be screamed at and told you are disappointing and held in contempt. I feel so sorry for the friend – ‘loosing’ someone you love to mental illness is so despairing. Even though you know they are sick, they look normal, so its still difficult not to take contempt and anger personally even when knowing such behaviour is influenced by being not well.

Surely the credit card companies would be interested and if joint accounts put on extra authorisations.

We had this with my Grandmother, she was bipolar, and whenever she was “up” she would go and try to buy things…. very expensive things like round the world cruises, cars etc. She has long since passed away, but when it was happening it would cause all sorts of trouble for my parents. The situation you describe sounds like a total nightmare.

I seem to remember a power of atourney being put in place, which enabled my parents to manage her finances. This did allow her a degree of financial freedom (to go and by a huge amount of pineapples on one occaision, for example), but any meaningful purchases would be blocked.

I really hope you get this resolved – and as othes have said, Mind should be able to give you some great advice. I’m sure that this is the sort of thing that they get involved with fairly regularly.

Friend has be advised (I dont know who by) that you cannot block the finances of a mentally ill person.

I think perhaps the problem I am looking at is that the friend wont try to find out anything that might require decisive action becasue friend is afaid of ‘being caught’ even finding out how to protect himself. So friend is ducking the issue now to be ‘safe’ but risking long term disaster. I cant really change that outlook and I guess my housemate may not be able to either. Unless partner recovers fairly fast I think friend is going to be sunk.

Following on from earlier comments I just looked up the court of protection site and I canonnot see refereces to anyone but the permanently incapacitated, no immediate sign of info on those who are believed to be short term ill.

Ah I just did this search on Google
“joint bank accounts and metal illness”
and there is some possible useful info come up I am going to take a look at it.

I have to go out soon, so wont be here to reply – thanks lots to everyone who has posted so far, lots of encouraging ideas I will pass to my housemate so he can in turn mention them to friend.

ah, this could be reson for caution, friend may loose access to his own money
http://www.estatelegacyservices.co.uk/blog/enduring-power-of-attorney/losing-joint-funds-due-mental-incapacity/

‘They’ need to speak with the ‘patient’s’ mental health team/CPN for advice – I recall similar event going on when I did psych, but can’t remember how they were managed…

DrP

edited. My own experience is just rhetoric.

Teh partner sould be able to protect themselves – but they need real good advice from professionals. I can’t suggest anything more than has been suggested already sorry

In Scotland there is some legislation around vulnerable adults and that others – in this case the finance companies – have a duty of care towards a vulnerable adult. There is equivalent legislation in England but I do not know it.

I think it’s the nature of bipolar that the meds dont always work and at some point there’s likely to be a relapse. Often people enter a manic phase, spend all their money, mess up their reputation then realise what’s happened and swing back to a depressive state. The change in meds can take a few weeks to settle as the old ones work their way out and the new take effect. If it’s been going on for months then it should have been looked into. One would question the service users compliance. Often people feel “better” and stop taking their meds while their partner has no idea.

I’m assuming the partner has a CPN or you know the number for the crisis team. Speak to them and they should flag it as a SOVA (safeguarding of vulnerable adults) issue to the local team. Failing that try contacting the local inpatient psych unit and speak to a nurse and see if you can get more info or a suggestion of who may be able to help.

I hope it works out.

Ok this is a fairly complex situation, and while I’m a CPN my field of expertise is older people’s mental health and dementia care in particular. There are significant differences between how older peoples services & Adult service, that said I’ll try and provide what advice I can.
Sadly due to the unique funding of the NHS CPNs can not always provide care and support for carers (to be truthful we struggle enough to support the clients – too many of them not enough us)
Right you mentioned that the person had been sectioned so I’m assuming that they are currently in hospital (don’t suppose you know if its sec. 2 or Sec. 3?). This should have some bearing on the situation. Also are the ward staff / Consultant aware of the spending and the fact that 3rd parties are involved? It is conseverble that there not picking up on the nature or extend – I’d also advice that social services are involved as it is actually their domain rather then ‘health’ – and can take action to provide safeguards. This is an adult protection issue and as such the MH trust and / or social service should / must institute proceedings to safeguard the person from financial abuse (including there own actions due to a diagnosed mental health problem).
You’ve done the right thing pointing your friend in the direction of MIND – a top organisation – CAB may also be worth contacting and keeping an open dialogue with the bank & credit cared companies.
One potential stumbling block may be around client confidentiality which does really limit what information can be given to who (e.g. all I can tell you about my work is that I work in a Northern post industrial city – any more is deemed a breach) – Is your fiend in contact with the persons family, and preferably the person named on the section papers as ‘nearest relative / next of kin’.
Hope all this helps – sorry for the rather tardy reply – but I’ve had router issues (new one works well though & were currently decorating (wife been ‘foreman’) Best of luck to all involved.

Midnighthour I can’t guide on the legalities around the mental health issue but on the finances and liability issues the friend may want to be aware of the following.

Friend can.be expected to be jointly and severally liable for JOINT debts but they have to be a party to the credit agreement.

If partner is made bankrupt then the trustee canand will go after partners equity in house, joint assets etc. Good prospect of losing house.

Creditors with joint debts can and typically would pursue friend. So he could end up bankrupt too.

Friend is not liable for debts in partners sole name.

I would strongly suggest friend sees a lawyer with care/mental.health specialisms

pls excuse rubbish typing.

If you are central southern england I may be able to suggest a lawyer or two.

I’m no expert and haven’t fully read all of the above posts, so might be duplicating, but as above contacting MIND is a good start. I may be wrong but I think that in some cases of mental illness (and bi-polar seems to be one of these) contracts entered into cannot be considered legally binding (there are various conditions that must be meet for a contract to be binding, both parties must be ‘sane’, ‘sober’ not under duress etc.) and it may be that he could be held not liable for contracts entered into and might get some money back.

As already mentioned though, it’s a specialist area and proper legal advice/representation feels really important.

I’ll put back some of the stuff I deleted yesterday as it now seems relevant.

My wife cannot financially disassociate herself from me while we’re still married, living at the same property etc.

The term vulnerable is defined differently by a a whole heap of instituitions, authorities etc. I could, if I qualified for attendance allowance or other similar benefit, be disregarded for council tax as Severley Mentally Impaired (SMI) and my wife would be sole liable and get a 25% discount. I work 5 days a week for a LA in the Court and Bailiff dept. recovering unpaid council tax. Bonkers.

My bank, credit card company and I dare say if I applied, Wonga would be more than happy to lend me money. Indeed, a major bank was lending me enough money to buy a small house on the edge of the Peak District two years ago. I ommitted to mention it to my wife though. Luckily, she found out before I’d spent huge amounts of money.

I went for a ride on my bike to buy something with my credit card 7 miles up the road. I came home in absolute bits, more by luck than design 10 days later having spent the best part of 2K on my card in and around the borders of Scotland.

My wife begged the credit card company to close my card. They wouldn’t really speak to her about it. Nope. Debt always gets paid with a bit of interest. Good business for them. Bad for me. I had to sell my Willier to pay for that holiday. Credit card account is now closed by me. I loved that bike.

Power of Attorney is possible but it freaks me out. Sometimes, my biggest weapon against this is clinging on to the fact that I have to beat this. Giving up on that would allow me to give up altogether.

If you’re reading this Gaz, s yes, you’re right. Shit up bringing, neice and nephew died in a fire, homeless for a while, two suicide attempts, nearly turned inside out by a big machine, lymphoma and at last a diagnosis for the way my head works probably does make me the unluckiest b*****d you’ve ever met but you don’t need to tell me every time you see me.

Sorry, I got a bit personal at the end. I get didactic. It’s a sympton and I don’t feel so good right now. Probs. delete all that in a minute anyway.

I’ll put back some of the stuff I deleted yesterday as it now seems relevant.

My wife cannot financially disassociate herself from me while we’re still married, living at the same property etc.

The term vulnerable is defined differently by a a whole heap of instituitions, authorities etc. I could, if I qualified for attendance allowance or other similar benefit, be disregarded for council tax as Severley Mentally Impaired (SMI) and my wife would be sole liable and get a 25% discount. I work 5 days a week for a LA in the Court and Bailiff dept. recovering unpaid council tax. Bonkers.

My bank, credit card company and I dare say if I applied, Wonga would be more than happy to lend me money. Indeed, a major bank was lending me enough money to buy a small house on the edge of the Peak District two years ago. I ommitted to mention it to my wife though. Luckily, she found out before I’d spent huge amounts of money.

I went for a ride on my bike to buy something with my credit card 7 miles up the road. I came home in absolute bits, more by luck than design 10 days later having spent the best part of 2K on my card in and around the borders of Scotland.

My wife begged the credit card company to close my card. They wouldn’t really speak to her about it. Nope. Debt always gets paid with a bit of interest. Good business for them. Bad for me. I had to sell my Willier to pay for that holiday. Credit card account is now closed by me. I loved that bike.

Power of Attorney is possible but it freaks me out. Sometimes, my biggest weapon against this is clinging on to the fact that I have to beat this. Giving up on that would allow me to give up altogether.

If you’re reading this Gaz, s yes, you’re right. Shit up bringing, neice and nephew died in a fire, homeless for a while, two suicide attempts, nearly turned inside out by a big machine, lymphoma and at last a diagnosis for the way my head works probably does make me the unluckiest b*****d you’ve ever met but you don’t need to tell me every time you see me.

Sorry, I got a bit personal at the end. I get didactic. It’s a sympton and I don’t feel so good right now. Probs. delete all that in a minute anyway.

I’ll put back some of the stuff I deleted yesterday as it now seems relevant.

My wife cannot financially disassociate herself from me while we’re still married, living at the same property etc.

The term vulnerable is defined differently by a a whole heap of instituitions, authorities etc. I could, if I qualified for attendance allowance or other similar benefit, be disregarded for council tax as Severley Mentally Impaired (SMI) and my wife would be sole liable and get a 25% discount. I work 5 days a week for a LA in the Court and Bailiff dept. recovering unpaid council tax. Bonkers. Psychie would say I’m vulnerable on occasion I suppose.

My bank, credit card company and I dare say if I applied, Wonga would be more than happy to lend me money. Indeed, a major bank was lending me enough money to buy a small house on the edge of the Peak District two years ago. I ommitted to mention it to my wife though. Luckily, she found out before I’d spent huge amounts of money.

I went for a ride on my bike to buy something with my credit card 7 miles up the road. I came home in absolute bits, more by luck than design 10 days later having spent the best part of 2K on my card in and around the borders of Scotland (250 miles away).

My wife begged the credit card company to close my card. They wouldn’t really speak to her about it. Nope. Debt always gets paid with a bit of interest. Good business for them. Bad for me. I had to sell my Willier to pay for that holiday. Credit card account is now closed by me. I loved that bike.

Power of Attorney is possible but it freaks me out. Sometimes, my biggest weapon against this is clinging on to the fact that I have to beat this. Giving up on that would allow me to give up altogether.

If you’re reading this Gaz, yes, you’re right. Shit up bringing, neice and nephew died in a fire, homeless for a while, two suicide attempts, nearly turned inside out by a big machine, lymphoma and at last a diagnosis for the way my head works probably does make me the unluckiest b*****d you’ve ever met but you don’t need to tell me every time you see me.

Sorry, I got a bit personal at the end. I get didactic. It’s a symptom and I don’t feel so good right now. Probs. delete all that in a minute anyway.

it would seem i’m even more mental than i thought i was. i don’ actually know wether to laugh or cry

Thanks for sharing that monksie, hope you do get it beaten.

Thank you so much to all the kind people who have posted.

I will pass on as much of this as possible to the party in question.

Somewhere further up the post, people have mentioned the health care team and social services – I have been given to believe when ‘friend’ approached the hospital
(partner has been sectioned for several months now, they are not permitted to leave the premises unless accompanied and have to return at night)
to ask what friend should do given the partners spending and the partners access to laptops and phones the friend was told his partner had legal rights to retain both the laptop and the phone and therefore internet access – AND – that the financial situation was nothing to do with the hospital in any way and that it is ‘purely a family issue’ and the family would have to deal with it all in their own way with no hospital support. I have heard of no mention at all of the social services assisting in any way, but this is only information I have been told and is open to error as I am not in direct contact with the immediate people involved, but my housemate is.

I would particularly like to thank Monksie for his willingness to post and huge generosity in helping people understand this illness. Its very helpful to get info from your perspective.

Thank you so much.

S’awight but thank you for saying thank you.

Monksie – you’re not that unlucky….you know me for a start 🙂 You’re never homeless when you know an Eddie like me.

(I really am that awesome)

(no really)

(bring curry money)

Sorry , but thread hijack here, need the help of the mental health professionals who have been posting on this thread….

can you be detained under Section 3, Section 37 or 37/41 of the mental health act for Paedophilia?

trying to get some clarification as there is a very dodgy planning app gone in next door to me on a property owned by a local “character”, who always has some scam or other in operation ( BBC Rogue traders could probably do a complete series on them alone)that superficially looks like a care home for the disabled, but when you dig a little deeper, its already touting for trade, despite not being CQC req’d or planning approved, for “residents” that have been

detained under the Mental Health Act particularly Section 37, 37/41, and 3 with forensic histories

trying to make sure this is not yet another case of him getting approval for one thing, then using it for something else completely, and ignoring enforcement notices, dragging things out legally for ever, and generally ignoring the rule of law.

again, sorry for the thread hijack…

Drillski

Has anybody suggested the OP sees a solicitor? They can be quite helpful, believe it or not.

I’m about to start a course of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy this afternoon for the exact same reason. I’ve set up a new profile to post this and another to protect my ID as my ex knows I post here.

I’ve never been officially diagnosed with depression but my behaviour would suggest I suffer from it. Essentially, in 2007 my business went bust (sole trader) and I went bankrupt to the tube of £130K. Since then I’ve had a string of £35K+ jobs, had over £20K in compensation in 2010, blowing about £12K of that on MTB’s and kit, which have now all been sold to pay off payday loans I’ve taken out every month to substitute erratic spending habits.

I’m now waiting to start a new job next week and potless, need to find £1000 to pay my way until I get paid next month from new job. With what I earn and have had there’s no way on earth I should be in this position.

I’ve gone to all sorts of charities and they all really only help with debt management and not counselling, however, i’ve persisted and found a local charity who are working with from today to get to the bottom of it.

If the OP wants to email me from email in profile I’ll happily talk in confidence and help where I can.

good luck