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Husband or wife not trying to avoid paying the business debts, its just they are hand-to-mouth at the moment.
If it were me, I'd pay the debt out of my savings but get the husband to transfer his share of the house to me, so such a situation could not arise again. After that if in future the husband manages to run up debts again, he'll have no assets and the wife wouldn't have to pay his debts like this again.
Another possibility is to change the ownership of the house, so that the wife owns 75% and the husband 25% share, instead of current 50/50.
The husband will have to agree to this, of course, and they will need a solicitor and the bank's consent.
We are talking about very serious money here, he didn't just run up a couple of thousands in debt but frittered away about half of his's share of the equity in their house and is still not taking full responsibility for it. It's my opinion that it's better for the wife to protect herself and their children from having the same thing happening again. It's not so much the husband that she'be protecting against anyway, as against any future creditors. She is not legally obliged to pay her husband's debts and the only reason his creditors can get her to do it is because they have a claim against husband's share of equity in the marital home. So it doesn't seem "strange" to me that, if the wife may buy the husband's share of the equity (or part of it), she should do so, rather than just throwing her rainy day savings away at these debts, allowing the same situation to happen again in future.
It's better to have a "strange" marriage than to be bankrupted by an irresponsible spouse. It's actually an advantage of Irish law that husbands and wives are not responsible for each others' debts, it protects the family from financial ruin if one (but not both) spouse is irresponsible or has very bad luck.
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