In December 2017, a single text message from her partner, Tom*, filled Sarah Matthews with dread: ‘Great news! We have a joint mortgage’. For Sarah, this was not a cause for celebration but the culmination of a campaign of coercive control that would trap her in a five-year legal and financial nightmare.
From Friendship to Financial Entrapment
Sarah first met Tom when they were teenagers. Their romantic relationship began years later, but Sarah was always cautious about their financial entanglement. By January 2014, she had saved £20,000 for a deposit on her own property, a goal she was determined to achieve independently.
She eventually succeeded, purchasing a London flat with a 10% deposit and marking the end of her relationship with Tom. She threw herself into renovating the property, taking out loans to make it habitable. Her hard work paid off when the flat’s value increased by £100,000 within a year.
However, after a death in his family, Tom pleaded to move in, claiming he ‘needed’ their relationship. Out of sympathy, Sarah relented. He began contributing to bills and mortgage repayments, but the property remained solely in her name.
The Proposal and the Pressure
Tom, who had previously opposed marriage, began proposing. After Sarah refused a poorly executed proposal in late 2016, he tried again in Bruges around four months later. Under pressure, Sarah said yes. “Almost immediately after the ring was on my finger he became fixated on money,” she recalls.
He demanded half the cost of the engagement ring and began a relentless campaign to be added to the mortgage. Despite her instincts, Tom eroded her confidence, insisting she was bad with maths. Sarah eventually capitulated.
The meeting at the bank to add his name is seared in her memory. “At no point did anyone from the bank ask me privately if I was comfortable with this change,” she states. Had they done so, she would have said no. The confirmation text felt like a dagger to her heart.
The Five-Year Battle for Freedom
Realising she had to escape, especially with a wedding looming, Sarah tried to cancel the nuptials. Tom ignored her, maintaining full control of their joint accounts. In desperation, she falsely claimed to have met someone else. His response was chilling: he told her she deserved to be punished.
While adding him to the mortgage took weeks, removing him took five gruelling years. Sarah initially offered him £15,000 to walk away, but he refused. Forced into a legal battle, she gathered evidence of abuse, including transactions from her account to his.
The strain was catastrophic. She lost her job after developing PTSD, had no income to cover mortgage and legal fees, and contemplated suicide. “Had it not been for my dad – who was so worried about me that he took £15k from his pension to pay him off – I’m not sure what would have happened,” she admits.
Even after the settlement, the bank required proof she could afford the mortgage alone. It wasn’t until April 2023 that she finally secured a new mortgage with the deeds solely in her name.
A Call for Awareness and Change
Sarah believes her ordeal could have been prevented if the bank had recognised the signs of financial abuse. “Tom weaponised my mortgage agreement as part of a campaign of coercive control over me,” she says. She is not alone; charity Surviving Economic Abuse reports joint mortgage abuse affects 1 in 8 women in the UK.
In the years since, Sarah has rebuilt her life and career as a personal trainer. She has contributed to the Domestic Abuse Bill to help make economic abuse a recognised crime. She shares her story to highlight the subtle early signs of economic abuse, hoping to prevent others from suffering the same fate.
*Names have been changed.
Need support? If you are affected by issues in this article, you can contact the Samaritans 24-hour helpline on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org. For young people, Papyrus’s HOPELINE247 is on 0800 068 4141.
