I intend to tender my resignation tomorrow at the school. No warning about the "accidents' as my class was supposed to be potty trained. Long story. Anyhow, I realized today that my husband has changed his health insurance to a $5,000 deductible, which he doesn't have. He can't even pay the $3,800 in property taxes. I realized that I will be responsible for any medical bills in the future. I am very healthy. He could easily have a recurrence of cancer. He is leaving me wide open to be responsible for his debts.
I searched today for states that require no waiting time for a divorce, CA, Alaska, Guam. I can go to any of them with my son's frequent flyer miles. I thought maybe with your excellent research skills you could help me out. Nevada requires 6 weeks, and a person who will testify you have been there that long.
Anything you can offer would be appreciated.
I just can't be in debt for the rest of my life, because he has mishandled everything. I need to work fast.
A friend offered to let me stay with her for 6 months, but can't take my cat. I can't trust him to care for the cat. I know it is just a cat, but I would be devastated if anything happened to her.
kitty, i looked up washington state. if you google Washington State Uncontested Divorce, they have lawyers that can have you divorced i as little as 120days start to finsih and included 90day waiting period after filing. and if you file in lincoln county you dont need to even appear in person at court hearing. ther is no residnecy requirements unless you have kids. maybe you could check it out, just a thought. maybe something that you can do?trying to help you out-divvi
Kitty: Does your husband have equity in his property? If he does don't you think they would place a lien on his property for debts instead of you having to pay them?
I don't know if that is good or bad. The house has been on the market for over a year. Next summer will be my third in a house barely furnished as all of our stuff is in storage. The house was fully paid for, but he took out a home equity line for $10,000. I don't know the ins & outs of all of this, but I do know his judgement is in question, & who knows what will happen next. It was o.k. when he had cancer, because he had an enormous inheritance to fall back on. But now, if he can't work.....well you get the picture. Any comments on your question would be appreciated. My understanding is that in VA debts are mutual. Regardless of who created them.
I believe with a lawyer's help, you can explain that your husband has AD. Ask them to have your bank account frozen along with the house, etc. That way he can't take out any more loans and all of that. I think this can be done. While you're talking w/the attorney, you might check that, too. You have a lot on your plate. Sort of like information overload, isn't it.
Only three states -- Alaska, South Dakota and Washington -- have no statutory requirement for resident status.
If one spouse meets the residency requirement of a state or country, a divorce obtained there is valid, even if the other spouse lives somewhere else. The courts of all states will recognize the divorce.
BUT!!!! just because you don't have a residency requirement does NOT mean that the divorce itself will be quick. You still have to go through everything that's required for the court to pass judgment on the division of assets and liabilities, alimony (either you paying your husband or vice versa), etc.
PLUS, please note that any decisions that the court makes regarding property division, alimony, etc., may not be valid unless the nonresident spouse consented to the jurisdiction of the court. This link says that consenting to the jurisdiction may be something as simple as signing an affidavit of service, acknowledging receipt of the filed legal documents, but I wouldn't count on that without finding out about the laws in your state.
So you would need to contact attorneys in any state you were considering using, and find out what the laws are there regarding community property, etc, how long the divorce might take, and what would be required to get all the paperwork done, etc. You'd also need to contact an attorney in your current state, to find out what would determine whether a judgment elsewhere on splitting assets and liabilities etc would be considered valid in your current state.
Also, I don't know whether any states still have a "cooling off" period. Used to be, in many states, that you had to wait a certain amount of time after filing (sometimes as long as six months or a year) before a divorce could go through, even if it was uncontested.
Every jurisdiction has some type of cooling-off period or waiting requirement that must elapse before a final divorce decree may be entered. The term cooling-off period refers to the statutorily mandated time period following the initiation of divorce proceedings during which no final decree may be entered. This period usually runs for a number of months depending on the jurisdiction.
In many instances, the divorce decree is not issued immediately after the cooling-off period has expired. This is so because divorce presents many complex issues that the parties must resolve or the court must resolve for them. In addition, the parties' respective attorneys' calendars must be accommodated and the court calendar must be considered.
Just as an example, the waiting period in Washington is 3 months. This is a minimum period and is intended to allow time for a reconciliation between parties. The process could take much longer if any aspect of a dissolution is contested and the parties have difficulty reaching an agreement. Washington is a community property state. There is no fixed method for determining how property should be divided. In Washington, all assets -- real and personal, tangible and intangible -- are available for distribution. As a community-property state, Washington laws provide for "just and equitable" division of property acquired during a marriage; it does not necessarily require an equal division. NOTE THAT in Washington, under some circumstances, the court may also apportion separate (or individual) property. This might be to your advantage, if you could claim some rights to the house in which you live. Or it might be to your disadvantage, if your husband could claim some rights to your rental property.
South Dakota is not a community property state. Alaska is not, but permits couples to elect community property status for divorce purposes if they choose to do so.
One site says: Some states allow for equitable distribution when justice is served. Legal consul should be consulted because the rules on distribution vary from state to state and have many exceptions.
Links to the divorce laws of the states and to tables summarizing some of their salient points:
Kitty: I do believe if you are billed for his debts and he doesn't pay them and you don't pay them a lien would be placed on his property. Of course, this might ruin your credit for a time, but like you are kind of between a rock and a hard place. If you did go to another state and file and your DH is notified by certified/registered mail and does not respond the divorce probably can still be obtained for you. I know that when my former husband filed for divorce and I had left Ca. because I was afraid of him and was living in Illinois I had to immediately fly back to Ca. and respond to his filing.
Well, so much for plan B. Didn't know you had to actually live in these places. Also, Lincoln county, WA is a community property state, all parties assets & debts must be put before the judge & can be divided as the court sees fit. (As opposed to here, where the parties just agree.)
Seems best to go back to my plan A. Hope I can hold out & move out & get him to agree to an uncontested divorce in my own state. Bummer.
Thanks all for your help. Guess there's no magical solution, it will just evolve as it's meant to.
In Ca. if both parties agree to the division of property if there is anything to divide, you can do a divorce yourself without an attorney. There is a form you fill out and both parties agree and it is filed with the court. I had a friend that did it and said it was so easy and saved thousands of dollars. That I can believe, because my divorce cost over $25,000 (just for me) because my husband kept continuing hearings and my attorney had to keep re-preparing for a hearing and the judge would continue it because both parties were not present. He did this to try and delete my personal assets.
Kitty, I think the parties can "just agree" in any state. But do you really think your husband is going to peacefully agree to anything? It's when you can't work out an agreement that the court steps in and tells you how it's going to be. So you need to know the specific laws, and how they are usually interpreted, where you live.
Which means, for the umpteenth time, TALK TO A DIVORCE ATTORNEY. Divorces do not "evolve". They are formed and guided and created by divorce attorneys.
setting up residency in a state you would want to go thru could be pretty simple. you get a domicile address on file with a postal service maybe if you are 'living' with a friend/relative, and set up a bank account/or a public utility with that address. and say you travel back and forth from one address to another for business. i know in tx it worked for me when i had to reside 6mos. divvi
Kitty, I thought he had agreed to a divorce a month or so ago. I'm sorry the job didn't work out. Early training for the incontinence issue! <grin> NOT!!!
Hopefully the next job will be better for you! You seem to be doing okay with everything falling down around you right now. We're all here to give you a big hug.....
By evolve, I meant I need to get a job that I can afford to live on independently. According to the laws of this state, you must be physically separated for 6 months prior to filing. Any attorney is going to tell me that! I just have to get to the point where I can do that.
I have a friend who filed for a divorce here a couple of months ago. It took her nearly a year to get her husband out of the house so she could file. She ended up buying him another house.
He did agree about the divorce when I brought it up. I told him that if he ever needed medical care, I would be responsible & could lose my house. He said, well that would go for me too, I'd be responsible for you. That was before I found out you have to live separate & apart for 6 months. I thought we could just agree & file.
There have been just so many shocks to my system this year. I call it my year from Hell.
I really don't think he will contest anything. He won't be willing to pay an attorney. (Or able.)
Early training for incontinence! That's exactly what I was thinking.
Kitty, I'm trying to remember during all of your discussions regarding the house - if it is paid for, and he has a $10,000 loan against it already, why doesn't he take out another loan and pay off the credit card debt, and get the house repairs finished so it can sell and you can both be free? Did I miss something?
No one is forced to accept divorce, or unfair allocation of assets, simply because s/he doesn't have "enough money" to pay for an attorney. Everyone has the right to be represented by an attorney. If his finances are in that bad shape, YOU could end up paying for his attorney. The court not only divvies up assets and liabilities, but also attorney's fees and court costs.
It is my understanding that the six months' living apart is one of the grounds for a so-called "absolute divorce", which also requires that the spouses must have entered into a separation agreement. One can file for an "absolute divorce" on other grounds, for example, without a separation agreement when the couple has lived separate and apart without cohabitation for one year. Other grounds which do not have cohabitation requirements include cruelty -- there's a time limit on that, and I can't tell from the verbiage whether you have to file within a year of the act of cruelty, or wait a year. In either case, I rather imagine you and an attorney can develop a reasonable argument for grounds, especially if your husband does not contest it. There is also a "limited divorce", the grounds for which do not have any stipulation regarding the length of time the couple must be living apart. They include cruelty, or reasonable apprehension of bodily injury, among other things.
Would you for pity's sake stop asking for advice from people with no legal training and talk to somebody who actually KNOWS?
Also, looking at Virginia laws, it appears that even if the house in which the two of you now live is "separate property", brought into the marriage by your husband, if its value has increased due to your personal effort, you do have a claim on that increase in value. Ditto if the current house was purchased with proceeds from the sale of separate property, and you contributed to the value of either one.
thats true Sunshyne about getting part of the separate property if you made it more valuable by your own proceeds. you may have to have records i think to prove it was made with your funding?plus if the value increases after he bought it, some of that may belong to the spouse i believe too. i know in tx community state, all dividends/interests/ and any monies accumulated on any separate property is considered divided assets.- i agree we are all guessing here, its best to consult with a lawyer to get the exact requirements and options. divvi
Basically Kitty, everyone is telling you to find a lawyer who does divorces in your state and do it now. Getting yourself educated is fine, but you are beyond that point. There is no reason to wait until you can move out. In fact there is no reason not to move out NOW.
I'm taking it for granted that you have either a friend or family member who would put you up on an emergency basis. Frankly you shouldn't even be looking for a job until you know where you will be living. This whole discussion started because your husband was on the edge of violence. You need to get out of there even if that means going to a shelter.
divvi, it's not just money that may have been invested, it's "significant personal effort." If I recall correctly, Kitty may well qualify.
Starling, thank you. Maybe Kitty will listen to you, because lord only knows she isn't listening to me ... !
One of the first questions to ask the attorney is what she should do about finding a place to live on a limited or non-existent income. Any divorce attorney will have dealt with that issue a gazillion times.
yes, sunshyne, something like 'marital interest' or the likes. i think the judge can give a proportionate interest in that property or make an additional asset allowance as such to compensate=. either way miss kitty has lots to ponder -but i can understand her reluctance in making the decisons-divvi
It is not often that I step into the middle of discussions in this manner, but I am doing so in this case. Arguing back and forth is not productive nor condoned on this board. Kitty asked for advice; you gave it - she should now seek advice from a divorce attorney. Sorry to report that when discussions become argumentative, I close them.