Hittin the Fan

[Pursuinghappiness]

Happy Holidays to everyone on the forum...and to everyone dealing with divorce trauma, I hope that 2012 is a better year!

Anyway...I went for my final questioning a bit ago and found out during/after the process that my stbx fabricated his financial statement regarding a large account. In addition during his questioning, he lied under oath regarding it. He then did not supply any of the disclosure account statements requested. This is the 2nd time this has happened as my lawyer also uncovered a bank account that he didn't list either but uncovered that one during the questioning process.

My question is pretty simple. My lawyer will soon be filing a motion in order to get the document disclosure requested...but what happens when someone continues to engage in this activity?

Does anyone have any experience with this?

[May_May]

HI Pursuing...that sucks. My ex is doing the same thing so I am interested in what the answer is. He has 2 bank accounts that I was not aware of, and now has to respond to money being moved over from our joint accounts to these.

[momforever1956]

This issue is a major one in Family Law. Disclosure. My experience has been, getting disclosure is very difficult. It has been over 2 years of constant letters and little bits of information trickling in.
Disclosure is needed for both support and division of property, and basing any numbers for either without all the information really has impact.
You can reclaim costs for disclosure when it is relevant to SS, and I have more than doubled my x's income even though it has taken so long. I will claim costs.
When one continues in deception and lies, the only thing you can do, is be aware and ask as many questions as you can. If he is t'4 then it is a bit easier than my x who is self-employed.
My background is in accounting, and I find it incredible how many people have approached me asking for direction. There is a real need for help in this area. The lawyers and accountants are only as good as the information their clients provides them with.

[ddol1]

momforever1956 You could be my savior! I can tell you what my ex has done flippin money here and there between accounts is mindboggling to the point I have given up as not worth the getting to the bottom for a few K. I just listed the odd accounts (asked her twice to disclose not with a story and fantasy guessing but just show me some proof of who owns the accounts and whyare you flipping money to what I hope is childrens accounts.

But you will soon find that I have no time left - I was at the bank the other week and i spent some time with the manager and she said way back when the wife just emptied out the resp accounts before i could reimburse my half of the tuition money - that all the origianl investment remains the property of the contributor and can be removed anytime with no consequence. Any profits stay with the child and in our case the profits were fully taken by the two tuition payments so my wife was in the right to take our funds so i would nio longer have access to get reimbursement.

My ex took $5400 at the end to put the account to less than $100 and $350 in bills to be paid - she paid the tuition from our joint account and left the resp alone because she was worried about a $0.03 FUND Fluctuation while our credit was being hammered. So through all this i find the ex took our money along the way and shifted it to a child dowery of sorts (3 children = a chunk of money!) I may be forced to being petty in some areas but the funny account movements of $300 here, $900 there, $200 and $??? evrywhere all to unidentified accounts. Is there any rational 'law' that this constant removal of our savings and well "on her own accord" just taking it - if we already set up thier resp accounts is there any claim to requesting the return of half this mystery money?

Yes it is admiral to save money so each child has a pot of 'gold' but when we are now facing dire straights for lack of capitol today should this money not be part of our assets today upon divorce "because sadly one of us is on the streets??????

[Pursuinghappiness]

ddol1:

I just listed the odd accounts (asked her twice to disclose not with a story and fantasy guessing but just show me some proof of who owns the accounts and whyare you flipping money to what I hope is childrens accounts.

LOL..why do you ask your ex anything and why are your accounts still linked enough to allow this type of activity?

I wasn't "asking" my ex anything. I do not talk to him at all. I'm talking about legal disclosure...he doesn't have to tell me a damned thing...neither does your ex. My situation was that he was lying under oath and got caught. I'm amazed that you have been going at this for this long and haven't figured out how to separate out your finances. I did that the very first month per the advice on this forum. Its quite easy to do.

You are creating your own problems in my opinion. There are reasons to follow the process of separation...separating yourself physically and separating your finances. You continue to ignore these suggestions at your continued peril.



MomForever1956:

The good news is that he's already caught. Its just a matter of degree. He claimed that his IRA was the exact same at date of marriage as at date of separation...then under questioning, when told that was impossible...he claimed that it was actually a bit less. Apparently, that's not true either...but he hasn't supplied the actual statement to determine exactly what it is. His lawyer has now made my lawyer aware that the account significantly increased in value during the marriage...but still no documents have been supplied. There was also another account that was left off his statement and was discovered during questioning (he admitted it).

My lawyer consequently has now frozen all of his retirement accounts to protect my equalization payment (when we figure out what it is) and will be filing a motion shortly to force document disclosure since he's supplied nothing that was requested during questioning. If my motion is successful (and I'll be asking for costs too) and he still doesn't comply...will he be found in contempt? I turned over everything that I was asked for within a couple weeks of my questioning.

[momforever1956]

I had a court order dated Setpember 2010 for disclosure----and received since then 2 different disclosures , (April 11 and June 11) which are still incomplete. I presume if and when we return to court---he is in contempt.
The good news is---if you have a court order for disclosure and you do not receive it complete it makes it much easier to get costs awarded.

[Tayken]

Originally Posted by momforever1956

I had a court order dated Setpember 2010 for disclosure----and received since then 2 different disclosures , (April 11 and June 11) which are still incomplete. I presume if and when we return to court---he is in contempt.
The good news is---if you have a court order for disclosure and you do not receive it complete it makes it much easier to get costs awarded.

Contempt is not really a great answer. You should remind them of the order but, don't threaten contempt. It is a quasi-criminal action and the rules for contempt result in fine or incarceration.

Your better move is to motion and request that an order be put forward that you can retrieve all the necessary documentation per the previous order yourself without consent of the other party. Basically, you would be asking the court for the right to retrieve the documentation as ordered from the appropriate organizations and an order supporting this.

Also, request costs on a motion like this. You will get costs. If a judge decides that it is "contempt" then let the judge decide. Mixing quasi-criminal with civil litigation is not the best idea.

Surely, you don't want the other party fined or incarcerated. You want the disclosure so matters can be settled. That was probably (assumption) your reason for the disclosure and the resulting order.

Contempt motions draw a lot of conflict and do nothing to help resolve matters. Actions in court actually don't solve problems either as they are setup for a win-lose strategy and draw the worst out of litigants. Especially in family law.

Good Luck!
Tayken

[pictonjoe]

get a job... an option your longwinded diatrabes never seem to mention

[blinkandimgone]

Interesting (if not entirely off topic) response. How is requesting disclosure related to working/not working and where does it say anywhere that the OP is currently NOT working??

[Berner_Faith]

Yea I was wondering the same thing...your first post and your telling someone to get a job? Someone who you really don't even know anything about...try reading the whole thread.