2 days ago
Lenders must probe joint borrowers for signs of exploitation
Economic manipulation as a form of domestic abuse has attracted rising recent attention, but fears remain that the law is not protecting the most vulnerable.
The Supreme Court highlighted the 'damaging effects' of the problem in a case ruling last month that a bank had a duty to investigate whether a woman faced undue influence from her partner when the couple took out a mortgage that would be used partly to pay off his debts.
The judges ruled unanimously that staff at One Savings Bank knew that money loaned to allow Catherine Waller-Edwards to remortgage her home would be used in a way that did not benefit her financially and it should therefore have checked to determine whether Nicholas Bishop had put her under undue influence.
