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Conclusion and recommendations  

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Please note: the following contains details of domestic abuse, including violence, and mentions of suicidal ideation, self-harm and suicide attempts, which some readers may find distressing.

Our analysis paints a worrying picture of the experiences of people who have been through economic abuse and have coerced debts:

  • Most respondents with coerced debts did not seek any help with their debts due to a range of factors including shame and embarrassment and low awareness of support. 
  • Most victim-survivors are left having to repay the coerced debts, and over half did not try to get any of their debts written off. 
  • Most victim survivors experience a range of serious negative impacts including financial hardship and poor health as a consequence of coerced debts, compounding harm experienced in the context of abuse. 
  • Victim-survivors face being left with impaired credit records that often lead to being declined for vital services and products, and even housing and employment opportunities.  

We urge policy makers to respond to the challenge raised by these findings.

Great progress has been made. The introduction of the coercive and controlling behaviour offence in the Serious Crime Act (2015) recognised the pattern of behaviours which compound to create threat, fear and harm and, the statutory guidance acknowledges,xxvii can lead to coerced debts. Economic abuse, of which coerced debt is an aspect, was later enshrined in the Domestic Abuse Act (2021).

Moreover, the FCA’s ‘Guidance for firms on the treatment of vulnerable customers’ (2021),xxviii the Government Debt Management Function’s (GDMF) Economic Abuse Toolkit (2023),xxix  and UK Finance’s updated Financial Abuse Code (2025) iv all provide good practice guidance on how to treat vulnerable customers, including victim-survivors.

Importantly, none of this guidance embeds the principle of economic justice in support for victim survivors.

Limitations and inconsistencies in support for victim-survivors reflect this. Some important coerced debt types like utilities and council tax arrears do not yet have any clear guidance in place. Furthermore, our analysis highlighted the importance of designing support services for victim-survivors that reckon with the complexity of their day-to-day reality and an often-impaired mental state.

Supporting Economic Abuse’s (SEA’s) ‘Good practice guide for financial services: Supporting customers experiencing economic abuse(2025)xxx provided more expansive guidance on how to treat victim-survivors, undergirded by the principle of economic justice.

Most recently, HM Treasury published the Financial Inclusion Strategy, which included economic abuse as one of its three cross-cutting themes, and made a formal commitment to “develop an approach to tackle the impact of coerced debt on victim-survivors’ credit files.”xxxi This was an important step, recognising how economic abuse drives financial exclusion in a number of ways.

Despite this progress, all too often, victim-survivors are being failed by the institutions and organisations designed to support them and, with responsibility for the interconnected issues that may affect these individuals sitting across different Government departments, there has sometimes been a lack of ownership over the issue and leadership to develop solutions.

The result is that far too many victim-survivors are left paying the price for their abusers’ behaviour. They are left paying back debts accrued through coercion and without their consent or sometimes even knowledge, and facing the common fallout of problem debt, with impaired credit records having future knock-on effects.

This is why the principle of economic justice is so important. Having acknowledged and articulated the problem for victim-survivors, economic justice takes us one step further. It does the work of helping a victim-survivor rebuild their financial life, seeking to put them back in the financial position they would have been in had the abuse never occurred.

Not only is this the just course of action, but it also aligns with the UK’s regulatory and legal priorities. The FCA’s Consumer Duty, for example, requires financial services to act to deliver good outcomes for customers and avoid foreseeable harm. It is hard to see how, if firms are not seeking to achieve economic justice for victim-survivors, they are meeting the principles of the Consumer Duty.

This is not about creating a one-size-fits-all approach to supporting victim-survivors with coerced debts, whom we know need to be given the individualised treatment that matches their circumstances. Rather, it is about embedding the principle of economic justice as a north star: one where the intention is to stop and prevent further harm, and repair and restore a victim-survivor’s finances so they can rebuild and move on with their life.

With leadership and collaborative working, there is a way to deliver impactful, positive outcomes for victim-survivors. Our evidence shows the importance of all stakeholders working together to undo the financial harm victim-survivors face when they have experienced coerced debt.

Recommendations

Government, regulators and industry should strengthen and build on the direction of travel set out in the Financial Inclusion Strategy to embed the principle of economic justice in policy and regulation: 

Government should develop definitions of coerced debt and economic justice to guide wider stakeholders. This definition should include fraudulent debts built up in the context of economic abuse to ensure comprehensive support for victim-survivors.

The Government should set out steps to work across departments to address legal and other barriers to economic justice including joint mortgage abuse, ‘joint and several liability’ barriers to separating joint debts, and economic abuse through the Child Maintenance Service and the courts.

Government should extend the principle of economic justice to the public sector, working with departments and local authorities to ensure a consistent approach to coerced debt.

The Government should work with the Money and Pensions Service and the debt advice sector to develop and commission sufficient specialist advice, including training for non-specialist advisors to identify economic abuse, and support the continued roll out of the Economic Abuse Evidence Form devised by Money Advice Plus and rolled out in partnership with Surviving Economic Abuse.

Government should increase awareness and take-up of help by delivering an awareness-raising programme for economic abuse and coerced debt. This should include a data-driven unpacking of the drivers of low awareness and low support-seeking behaviour. Tying in with the Violence Against Women and Girls Strategy (2025 - 2030), this campaign should last until at least the end of 2030. Consideration should also be given to the specific barriers male victim-survivors face when seeking support.

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) should develop guidance for financial services on economic abuse and coerced debt, building on SEA’s ‘Good practice guide for financial services’ and UK Finance’s Financial Abuse Code of Practice. The guidance should address Consumer Duty obligations and economic abuse, clarify financial services’ scope and flexibility to separate joint debts safely, and provide clarity for the financial services sector on how coerced debts by fraud should be dealt with.

UK regulators should  coordinate through UKRN to agree principles to deliver a consistent cross-sector approach to coerced debt that supports economic justice, and ensure those principles translate into regulatory rules and guidance.

Finally, analysis of our new data paints a worrying picture of life after economic abuse, demonstrating how victim-survivors’ financial lives are quite often ruined by the actions of their abuser. Even after they have fled the abuse, they remain tethered either to the abuser or else to their actions, unable to move on. The impacts on finances, health, work and relationships illustrate just how life-altering coerced debt can be.

It is therefore incumbent on policy makers to use their power to prevent further harm to victim-survivors from economic abuse and coerced debt. As organisations working to support victim-survivors from a financial perspective, we cannot undo the emotional and psychological impacts of abuse, but what is within our power is to undo some of the financial impacts of the abuse.

HM Treasury’s commitment to working with the CRAs to develop an approach to victim-survivors’ credit files, as part of the Financial Inclusion Strategy, is promising and needs to move forward. StepChange, is working with the credit information industry and consumer advocates on this as well as the industry led remedies set out in the FCA’s Credit Information Market Study final report and the establishment of the Credit Information Governance Body (CIGB).

We would also like to see creative thinking in the development of approaches to a credit restoration and repair framework for victim-survivors, as well as exploring how existing processes can be adapted to provide swift remedies that centre economic justice.

One such example would be to use the ‘set aside’ process to cancel a County Court Judgment (CCJ) in cases where the Judgment is deemed to have arisen from economic abuse/coercive and controlling behaviour. CCJs can be particularly damaging for a victim-survivor: involving a court formally ordering a person to repay debts owed. They significantly impair a person’s credit file, and remain on their file for six years unless paid off within 30 days.xxx They can lead to escalating action in cases of non-payment, such as involving bailiffs, attaching earnings, or placing a charge on a person’s property. CCJs are also publicly visible for anyone to view for a small fee, with the entrant’s name, address and amount owed, which can put a victim-survivor’s safety in jeopardy.

The set aside process already exists on legal or technical grounds, such as in cases where a Judgment has been wrongfully issued, though it carries a fee (£313 for individuals applying directly or £123 if a creditor and debt advisor act on an individual’s behalf). Building on existing processes to remove CCJs, which our research found affected 7% of victim-survivors, would therefore be impactful and begin to rectify a significant driver of financial and other exclusion for victim-survivors.

The Government, credit information industry and stakeholders should work together to tackle the long-term credit file impacts of coerced debt, so that victim-survivors aren’t left paying the price for their abusers’ behaviour:

  • HM Treasury should set out clear expectations for the development of an effective credit information remedy and repair framework for victim-survivors by the end of 2026, so that their credit files reflect their true creditworthiness, and not the abuse they have experienced.  
  • The CIGB should prioritise development of that framework and support for victim-survivors of economic abuse in its work programme, timetabling action as soon as possible taking account of any enabling steps needed.   
  • The Ministry of Justice and HM Courts & Tribunals Service should work together to ensure that CCJs that arise in cases of economic abuse are removed from the Register of Judgments without any application fee. 

Would you like to find out more?

Email us to discuss or request more information about this report at policy@stepchange.org

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