Can my stbx use the losses from a 20 year old business bankruptcy as a liability against our assets so he pays me less, or perhaps nothing at all?
Friends and family tell me they have never met a nastier stbx who will do ANYTHING to keep his house so my case keeps going on and on with new twists along the way just when I thought we were getting close to settling. Those twists include kicking his kids out because they have been arguing that he is not being fair to me. The kids and I finally left the matrimonial home in Sept 2010 and they won’t speak to him unless they absolutely have to, my stbx and I were living separately in the same house for 2+ years prior to that. Thankfully he travels a lot. He is an extreme narcissist and will continue to hurt us all and deplete all funds just to have his control. I just want my half.
The latest twist...married in ’87, while pregnant with 2nd child in ’91 my stbx’s 16 year old business went bankrupt...just prior to this happening his bank made me sign a personal guarantee they said was just to update their files then two weeks later on Christmas Eve the bank called our note. This forced his business into immediate bankruptcy and in turn forced us each to declare personal bankruptcy as we were each now on the hook for the business loan because the bank made me sign the guarantee. To make a long story short we slowly bought back our home from the bank (thanks to some bail-out money from my aunt) and started over. My stbx started another business and we have been trying to divorce since Sept 2008.
We have not been able to come close to agreeing on a settlement. He hasn’t paid me a cent for my half of the house (and the title of the house is only in my name) or any expenses for the kids - he would not vacate, told me and the kids, then age 17 and 20, to get out, and he insists that the house is his and is only offering me a fraction of what it is worth because he says he put more work and money into it than I did – I was a stay-at-home-mom, helping my stbx part-time with his business until I went back to school and started a new career of my own full time in 2001. I know the law is 50/50 even if I hadn’t worked a day in my life so I have been arguing that point...my stbx is now on his third lawyer yet trying to represent himself.
In June I took him to court to force the sale of the house, it seemed the only way to get this done cleanly. As predicted, the judge took one look at our file, slammed it on the desk and said “this is ridiculous, this has taken far too long” and he wrote a court order to have the house listed for sale. My stbx started sputtering “but I plan on buying it” and the judge said “well sir, you’ve had over two years, what’s your problem” and then judge told him he had two weeks to make the offer to me or he would have to pay full real estate commission on it. I already had a RE agent waiting in the wings to list it and then the guy chickened out because my stbx refused to let him in the house and he changed the locks and the REA didn’t want to get involved in the fight. So before the 2 week period was up my stbx finally made an offer, it was the same as all his other offers, a waste of time so I continued to try to get the house for sale but it never got listed. We decided over the summer that the lawyers were getting too far ahead of us (and our bills way too high) so we thought we could come to our “senses” and work it out between the two of us. He got sugar-sweet and tried to deal over and over with the same offer but it hasn’t worked out. He will not go a penny higher with his offer. Now we have a settlement conference date in front of the same superior court judge for a whole hour in one week from now. I think that the judge can throw contempt charges at both of us for disobeying his court order to list the house for sale, I am preparing myself for that blow. My stbx is pressuring me to have the court date adjourned but I can’t slow this train down now apparently so he says if we go to court he is throwing his bankrupt business loss into the pile of liabilities. I think this is absolutely crazy, I already paid for that loss with bankruptcy and the 7 years of no-credit and financial hell after that. He says the Family Law Act says he can do it and he’s read it with a fine-tooth comb.
Is this just an empty threat or can he actually use that 20 year old financial loss against me? It wasn’t even my business except that I was married to him. His quote is “I will be using the loss of the business if we go to court as it is simple that if the business comes into the marriage and gains value then you get half the value that is gained subsequently if it is lost then you get half the loss.” It was a big loss but I thought the bankruptcy took that loss out of the equation, i.e. can it be used against me again?
This has been his ‘wild card’ he was threatening me with but now that we have to have a settlement conference I know that he will use it, he already paid to have all the accounting done and prepare it for court.
I should say that he has had another successful business since then and we agreed that I would not touch his business and he wouldn't touch my pension. If I went after his business it could cause him to be unemployed and then I might be on the hook for spousal support for him (I have an excellent job). Also it requires forensic accounting and lawyer time which will cost thousands and already we are in major legal debt.
His offer is about 65% of what I was hoping for – this might not seem like a big difference but I have all the expenses for the kids until they are done school and working (except his 1/3 that he is forced to pay by law towards their education) as well I have to replace everything as he wouldn’t let me or one of his children even have one couch from the house (we had 6 couches in the house).
He now lives alone in this beautiful big house on the lake with a big boat, he can rent the place out for $2000 a week in the summer if he wants or could borrow against the house, I have nothing but debt. My old neighbour actually called to see if I was still alive, she said “I thought for sure you must be dead or tied up in someone’s basement because he is living the ‘life of Riley’ now working only about 2 days a week, has a new motorcycle and a different woman at the house each week.” She said, "I've never seen someone so much better off after a divorce than he was before".
I am trying to divorce a lunatic and it's wearing me down!
Friends and family tell me they have never met a nastier stbx who will do ANYTHING to keep his house so my case keeps going on and on with new twists along the way just when I thought we were getting close to settling. Those twists include kicking his kids out because they have been arguing that he is not being fair to me. The kids and I finally left the matrimonial home in Sept 2010 and they won’t speak to him unless they absolutely have to, my stbx and I were living separately in the same house for 2+ years prior to that. Thankfully he travels a lot. He is an extreme narcissist and will continue to hurt us all and deplete all funds just to have his control. I just want my half.
The latest twist...married in ’87, while pregnant with 2nd child in ’91 my stbx’s 16 year old business went bankrupt...just prior to this happening his bank made me sign a personal guarantee they said was just to update their files then two weeks later on Christmas Eve the bank called our note. This forced his business into immediate bankruptcy and in turn forced us each to declare personal bankruptcy as we were each now on the hook for the business loan because the bank made me sign the guarantee. To make a long story short we slowly bought back our home from the bank (thanks to some bail-out money from my aunt) and started over. My stbx started another business and we have been trying to divorce since Sept 2008.
We have not been able to come close to agreeing on a settlement. He hasn’t paid me a cent for my half of the house (and the title of the house is only in my name) or any expenses for the kids - he would not vacate, told me and the kids, then age 17 and 20, to get out, and he insists that the house is his and is only offering me a fraction of what it is worth because he says he put more work and money into it than I did – I was a stay-at-home-mom, helping my stbx part-time with his business until I went back to school and started a new career of my own full time in 2001. I know the law is 50/50 even if I hadn’t worked a day in my life so I have been arguing that point...my stbx is now on his third lawyer yet trying to represent himself.
In June I took him to court to force the sale of the house, it seemed the only way to get this done cleanly. As predicted, the judge took one look at our file, slammed it on the desk and said “this is ridiculous, this has taken far too long” and he wrote a court order to have the house listed for sale. My stbx started sputtering “but I plan on buying it” and the judge said “well sir, you’ve had over two years, what’s your problem” and then judge told him he had two weeks to make the offer to me or he would have to pay full real estate commission on it. I already had a RE agent waiting in the wings to list it and then the guy chickened out because my stbx refused to let him in the house and he changed the locks and the REA didn’t want to get involved in the fight. So before the 2 week period was up my stbx finally made an offer, it was the same as all his other offers, a waste of time so I continued to try to get the house for sale but it never got listed. We decided over the summer that the lawyers were getting too far ahead of us (and our bills way too high) so we thought we could come to our “senses” and work it out between the two of us. He got sugar-sweet and tried to deal over and over with the same offer but it hasn’t worked out. He will not go a penny higher with his offer. Now we have a settlement conference date in front of the same superior court judge for a whole hour in one week from now. I think that the judge can throw contempt charges at both of us for disobeying his court order to list the house for sale, I am preparing myself for that blow. My stbx is pressuring me to have the court date adjourned but I can’t slow this train down now apparently so he says if we go to court he is throwing his bankrupt business loss into the pile of liabilities. I think this is absolutely crazy, I already paid for that loss with bankruptcy and the 7 years of no-credit and financial hell after that. He says the Family Law Act says he can do it and he’s read it with a fine-tooth comb.
Is this just an empty threat or can he actually use that 20 year old financial loss against me? It wasn’t even my business except that I was married to him. His quote is “I will be using the loss of the business if we go to court as it is simple that if the business comes into the marriage and gains value then you get half the value that is gained subsequently if it is lost then you get half the loss.” It was a big loss but I thought the bankruptcy took that loss out of the equation, i.e. can it be used against me again?
This has been his ‘wild card’ he was threatening me with but now that we have to have a settlement conference I know that he will use it, he already paid to have all the accounting done and prepare it for court.
I should say that he has had another successful business since then and we agreed that I would not touch his business and he wouldn't touch my pension. If I went after his business it could cause him to be unemployed and then I might be on the hook for spousal support for him (I have an excellent job). Also it requires forensic accounting and lawyer time which will cost thousands and already we are in major legal debt.
His offer is about 65% of what I was hoping for – this might not seem like a big difference but I have all the expenses for the kids until they are done school and working (except his 1/3 that he is forced to pay by law towards their education) as well I have to replace everything as he wouldn’t let me or one of his children even have one couch from the house (we had 6 couches in the house).
He now lives alone in this beautiful big house on the lake with a big boat, he can rent the place out for $2000 a week in the summer if he wants or could borrow against the house, I have nothing but debt. My old neighbour actually called to see if I was still alive, she said “I thought for sure you must be dead or tied up in someone’s basement because he is living the ‘life of Riley’ now working only about 2 days a week, has a new motorcycle and a different woman at the house each week.” She said, "I've never seen someone so much better off after a divorce than he was before".
I am trying to divorce a lunatic and it's wearing me down!
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