In regards to council tax, it has to be paid no matter who is living there. Ideally, both you and your husband should have stumped up for it between you, but he hasn’t so you have to grin and bare it unfortunately. You may, however, be able to get a single person rebate so you don’t have to pay as much. I’m not sure whether this works retrospectively, so you need to check it out. Contact your local council offices for advice on this.

Any debts accrued while you are together are effectively both your debts if they are in joint names. A bailiff however cannot pursue you if he has personal debts. If anyone contacts you regarding debts that are personal to him, then you need to explain to them that he no longer resides at your address and you do not know where he is. It will help a lot if you can get proof that he no longer resides at your address as they will know you’re not just trying to cover his back.

The house is a tricky one. I’m assuming it will be classed as a joint asset. You really need to get a divorce solicitor involved now. When you state that you don’t know his new address, the courts can force a disclosure notice to relevant authorities so that they track him down and can issue him with the papers. The relevant authorities will be either Inland Revenue, the benefits agencies and a whole host of other organisations and they WILL find him. Assuming he responds using a solicitor then his new address will more than likely be passed on to your solicitor, and then on to you. You can then use this address to redirect any mail to him. Going back to the house, as I said, it will most likely be classed as a joint asset and the court may order it to be sold. If it’s in your name only or you can prove that he never paid any contributions to the mortgage then it does alter things slightly, but your solicitor can advise here. It doesn’t have to be sold though and you can buy him out of his share, but the problem is you’ll need to remortgage for it’s current market value or get a loan. Now this is where it can be swung to your advantage.

You said he owes your mother £50,000. If the market value of the house is say £80,000, that makes 50% of the value £40,000. Your mother can agree to either pursue him for the money (although £50K is over the threshold for small claims courts) or to have him sign the house over to you with a view to writing the debt off or part of the debt. She can then arrange some sort of payback scheme with you which means you’re not having to deal with mortgage companies etc and she’s more likely to be understanding if you hit a rough patch. If he refuses to do this, then unfortunately only your mother can chase up money he owes her as it’s classed as a loan.

If he does manage to force a sale of the house then his victory may be short lived. If you can inform his creditors that the house will be being sold and he’ll have money on such and such a date then they can apply to have his share of the money frozen so that they are paid. This will effectively stop him from getting a windfall and blowing the money or managing to hide it. This is complex though and best left to them to sort out.

In regards to mail, while you don’t have his address, simply cross out his name and mark it all as return to sender and pop it in your nearest post box. If you’re having debt collection agencies ringing the house then simply contact BT and ask for your number to be changed and made ex-directory. Do not give him your new number, but tell him to call you on your mobile instead. The best thing to do with this is tell him your number has changed and get a Pay As You Go SIM and phone (preferably on a completely different network to him and one that will be the most expensive for him to call you from) and then you won’t be hassled when you don’t want to be. If he tries calling your original mobile number just don’t answer it or bounce the calls to voicemail. If he’s only going to get an answer on one number then he’ll start calling it sooner or later. Remember, when you call him, type 141 before the number so it doesn’t let him know which number is calling.

Finally, if he’s being abusive in any shape or form then ask your solicitor about getting an injunction against him. This makes it illegal for him to contact you or for him to get anyone to contact you on his behalf.

All in all I’d say get a solicitor just to check that my advice is correct and, more importantly, to get divorce proceedings going. If he doesn’t co-operate it doesn’t matter. It may take around two years if he doesn’t but the sooner you get working on it, the sooner the pathetic excuse will be out of your life.

Good luck.