You've had the Dear Joan letter. It's over. And as if the emotional wrench of parting wasn't bad enough, your ex-to-be has left you with a $50,000 debt on his dream sports car.

You co-signed on the loan years ago, during that honeymoon period when you thought love would last forever.

You now realise that he spent the money meant for payments on the pokies and his new girlfriend.

He's broke. The bank is snapping at your heels.

Your financial counsellor meets you with grim news. You have contracted sexually transmitted debt.

It may be scant comfort, but you are not alone.

A Melbourne community worker specialising in financial issues, Jenny Lawton, says one in five of her clients suffer from the syndrome. The overwhelming majority of victims - about 95 per cent - are women.

Ms Lawton, who co-authored a booklet called How to Get Out of Sexually Transmitted Debt, released in August 1999, says the chief symptom is that the victim inadvertently is primarily liable for a loan from which they received no benefit.

Susceptibility is increased by the influence that spouses can have over each other.

STD most often hits people who are in a de facto or married relationship and the borrowing is usually done for something - be it a car, business or billiard table - that is for the male partner's use.

"The most common thing that happens is that when he's attempted to borrow money, the credit provider asks the spouse to come down and sign as well," Ms Lawton says.

"It's most likely because the creditors are either unhappy with something in his credit history or because on his income alone he doesn't have the capacity to service the payments.

"So they want someone else to hold equally responsible."

The danger comes when the spouse signs the forms that stipulate him or her as either a co-borrower or a guarantor - without fully understanding the implications.

According to the book Money Management for Women, a guarantor is legally obliged to pay the borrower's debts if the borrower cannot or will not pay. The lender has a legal right to the guarantor's house, savings and any other assets. The lender can sue both the borrower and guarantor together but must try to retrieve the money from the borrower before making the guarantor pay.

If you become a co-borrower, however, the lender can choose which co-borrower to sue in the event that payments cease. Money Management for Women says the lender ". . . usually chooses whichever one has the higher income or most assets, or the one (who) can be found at the time".

And whether you are a guarantor or co-borrower, remember that if the borrower is declared bankrupt, you are legally liable to pay jointly owned debts.

Ms Lawton offers a textbook case of STD and its effects. A woman came to her for help in late 1999 because her husband had died and there was a loan to a finance company for the courier van for his business.

The sale of the courier van didn't pay out the amount owing on the loan, and the finance company was holding her responsible for the remaining debt of $8000.

The woman explained that when the husband had tried to start his courier business, he had put pressure on her for a week, telling her that unless she signed, he couldn't get the van because he had been refused credit.

She gave in - despite having nothing to do with running the business - and signed as a co-borrower, which meant that she was equally liable for the whole of the debt.

When he died, the widow was left shouldering the debt that remained. She has four children, the family's income has been halved and she is unable to keep the courier business going to service the debt payments.

Ms Lawton says it is in the interests of sales staff acting on commission from finance companies to exploit emotional ties.

The spiel might be as simple as "we just need you to sign here" or, "we always like the wives to sign". And partners might enforce the pressure by pleading, "oh, they mightn't give me the loan if it's just me", or "I really need this car".

Ms Lawton says if they don't sign, the spouse "might fear that they will be seen as somehow not committed to the relationship, if they object.

"Whereas if you were with just a friend who was buying a car and a dealer turned around and said to you, 'oh, we'll need your signature on this loan as well', you'd just laugh at them."

Another woman client of Ms Lawton's signed for her boyfriend's car at a second-hand lot because the salesman said they needed a "witness".

"It turns out she's signed as the only borrower for what was his car," Ms Lawton says.

"They split up and a couple of years later she started to get letters and demands from this finance company . . . she wanted to know what the heck was going on . . . she said she'd never had a loan with them.

"As far as she knew, her boyfriend had taken out a loan to buy it. But she was the one who signed on the bottom line."

Borrowing for items of joint benefit in a relationship can also lead to strife.

In a "very nasty and very messy" case, one client of Ms Lawton's suffered through a clause that allowed her husband to write cheques against the equity of their marital home without her knowing.

The woman's husband arranged for the bank to send all mail relating to the mortgage to his own private post office box to conceal the fact he was racking up $50,000 in redrawals from the loan.

The scheme was only discovered after the couple's marriage broke up and the house was put on the market, and the woman found that $150,000, not $100,000, was owed on the house.

So what can you do when you have acquired STD?

Ms Lesley McKenzie, principal solicitor at the Consumer Credit Legal Service, says nine out of 10 victims end up paying the debt.

However, there have been defences used in court where the "victim" has proved successfully that the lender knew or should have known that the person had no idea what they were doing when they signed on for a loan.

In the High Court ruling Garcia v. National Australia Bank in August 1998, a New South Wales woman who had guaranteed the debts of her husband avoided paying them because the bank was found not to have properly conveyed to her the liability she had taken on.

The NSW Consumer Credit Legal Centre said the decision warned banks and other credit providers not to gloss over loan contracts and a guarantor's obligations.

The banking ombudsman hears complaints about banks and can rule without necessarily involving courts and lawyers - unless lenders have already started proceedings.

However, there is less recourse for non-bank debts. Finance companies have no official dispute-resolution scheme. AVCO however recently set up an internal dispute-resolution scheme under an independent lawyer. Credit unions have several dispute resolution schemes, but Ms Lawton says she is concerned that they are inadequate and there should be a single independent scheme.

The majority of lenders will sue borrowers in the courts and these cases can involve thousands of dollars in legal costs and be drawn out for months.

But consumers can apply to the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal's credit division if the lender has failed to comply with the Consumer Credit Code.

Like any disease, it is far more desirable to prevent sexually transmitted debt than to treat it.

Ms McKenzie says the best strategy is to educate consumers not to sign for debts that aren't theirs, and warn them about liabilities if they do enter into these contracts.

The issue of pre-nuptial agreements is still being debated in Federal Parliament, but Ms McKenzie doubts they would be effective protection against the STD that is played out after such a contract is drawn up.

"How could you write into a contract or pre-nuptial agreement, 'if you ever borrow money in the future, I will not be liable for it'?" she says.

Caroline Counsel, chair of the Law Institute of Victoria's family law section and partner in the law firm Counsel & Kelly, says this may be true, but "pre-nups" could help couples identify what each is bringing into the marriage.

"If you quarantine your premarital assets and don't merge them with those of your partner, if they remain in your name and you don't allow your partner to offer them as security in relation to any loans, you've got a good chance of preserving them," she says.

Ms Counsel says many STD cases are a hangover from the days when one party in a relationship, usually the man, controlled the purse strings.

She says that even now, too often the other partner assumes control financially and the other partner is kept out of, or relinquishes, participation in the financial aspect of a relationship.

"It's very interesting that a lot of men are able to persuade financial advisers who are ostensibly acting for both parties to do things at their (the man's) behest," Ms Counsel says.

"And I've also known of certain circumstances whereby banks can be hoodwinked into complying with the male of the relationship, and their request, such as allowing loans with security without signatures from women."

But Ms Counsel says women must take responsibility for knowing both where they stand financially in the relationship and the consequences for one or both partners if something goes awry.

Ms Counsel has a list of advice for couples entering a new relationship:

• Remain fully informed and involved in your financial affairs. Don't relinquish control.
  
• Don't sign anything unless you know what you are signing. If in doubt, have it looked at by an accountant, adviser or lawyer.
  
• If you do combine financial resources with your partner, know the financial consequences if something goes wrong.
  
• Understand what it means to be "jointly and severally" liable for a debt - which means if one person can't pay it, the other has to pay it in full.
  
• If trouble strikes, get advice from a lawyer to minimise or avoid damage to your asset base.
  
• Consider seeking a financial adviser who is separate and independent from your partner's.
  

Ms Lawton says women are becoming more aware that their signature is valuable and that their income and assets are at risk when they sign a loan contract. "And perhaps they're therefore a little bit more suspicious about being presented with a pen and told, 'we need your signature here'."

Ms Lawton says even on a joint savings account, make sure there is no overdraft facility that one party could exploit without you knowing.

"If you take out a home mortgage, don't just rush up to the bank in your lunch hour and sign it on the dotted line where they show you. Take it away, read it, and make sure you privately see someone at the bank to make sure you fully understand the terms and conditions," she says.

"Find out what sort of facilities are attached to it. It might be that you or the other borrower can keep extending the line of credit. There's nothing wrong with borrowing together to buy a home, but if one party can abuse that facility and start putting you into more debt without you even knowing, it's possibly not the kind of loan you should have.

"The other thing is, when you get the statements each month or twice a year, whether it's the home loan or savings account, read them and check them."