Help with issues with my ex-husband--edit

[tylerandalexsmom]

You dont have to explain yourself to any of us. I just hated to see you be taken advantage of, but your safety and your children's safety is most important. Hopefully my explanation of how the time frame works helps. But if he did say anything (which I dont think he would actually press, since he does owe you more), I would just refer him to whatever attorney you are using , and have them make the point that he owes you more money than he could ever try to say that you owe him. I learned, when exes say stuff, they are hoping you will cave, but they dont actually press it, bcs they know they are on shakey ground. But take your safety seriously, and let any attorney you use know, as well as other suggestions for whom to contact. Stay safe!

 

[tarheelmjfan]

I haven't read all the replies, but if you want to know what the house sold for, you should be able to find that out simply by typing in the address on Google. The town would have to be really small for that info not to be available online.

 

[MrsCobraBubbles]

You dont have to explain yourself to any of us. I just hated to see you be taken advantage of, but your safety and your children's safety is most important. Hopefully my explanation of how the time frame works helps. But if he did say anything (which I dont think he would actually press, since he does owe you more), I would just refer him to whatever attorney you are using , and have them make the point that he owes you more money than he could ever try to say that you owe him. I learned, when exes say stuff, they are hoping you will cave, but they dont actually press it, bcs they know they are on shakey ground. But take your safety seriously, and let any attorney you use know, as well as other suggestions for whom to contact. Stay safe!

Yes, thank you for all your help. Sorry I got snippy and defensive.

 

[wenrob]

Yes, thank you for all your help. Sorry I got snippy and defensive.

I don’t think you did. You are doing what you feel is right for you and your family and that’s all that matters. Some of us can’t help wanting to defend and see an injustice set right. We haven’t walked in your shoes though. I think all intentions here are good. I hope at least this thread has calmed you a little bit in knowing that loan is something you don’t have to worry about.

 

[clutter]

By chance, have you checked Zillow? It might be too soon, but they will put a little yellow dot on a property that has had a sale recently recorded. You could also check your county/municipality tax records to see if the name on the property has changed, if they have that capability.

 

[MrsCobraBubbles]

I haven't read all the replies, but if you want to know what the house sold for, you should be able to find that out simply by typing in the address on Google. The town would have to be really small for that info not to be available online.

By chance, have you checked Zillow? It might be too soon, but they will put a little yellow dot on a property that has had a sale recently recorded. You could also check your county/municipality tax records to see if the name on the property has changed, if they have that capability.

I just checked, thanks. Zillow lists the sale in June. It sold for the amount his cousin told me he was going to sell it for. For him to sell it for so little it had to be really destroyed, he loves money too much to give any up without reason. I'm feeling better about it today, I think I'm mentally exhausted from worrying.

 

[cabanafrau]

IMO it doesn't sound like you're getting bad legal advice at all. Attorneys have seen plenty of cases like yours. Honest, competent attorneys will be honest about the futility and the financial costs of fighting a war you won't win, even if you do on paper. A very good friend went through a similar situation. Both of her children reaching adulthood and no longer facing possible visitation with dad was a very, very sweet milestone.

Real property cannot be sold with liens or encumbrances. That's what title searches and title insurance are designed to do, pass clean title onto a new purchaser. That loan had to be repaid at closing, the same way a mortgage would. He would have had to sign the documents at closing to disburse that portion of the sales proceeds to satisfy the loan. He may be angry about it and he may even try yet to pressure you to repay him. Stay calm and tell him you simply do not have the money, period. He knows there's a risk you could come after him for your share of the house. Odds are very high that idea is enough to keep him at bay. Every single day is another day towards your kids being forever out of his reach. That's worth everything.

 

[ronandannette]

IMO it doesn't sound like you're getting bad legal advice at all. Attorneys have seen plenty of cases like yours. Honest, competent attorneys will be honest about the futility and the financial costs of fighting a war you won't win, even if you do on paper. A very good friend went through a similar situation. Both of her children reaching adulthood and no longer facing possible visitation with dad was a very, very sweet milestone.

Real property cannot be sold with liens or encumbrances. That's what title searches and title insurance are designed to do, pass clean title onto a new purchaser. That loan had to be repaid at closing, the same way a mortgage would. He would have had to sign the documents at closing to disburse that portion of the sales proceeds to satisfy the loan. He may be angry about it and he may even try yet to pressure you to repay him. Stay calm and tell him you simply do not have the money, period. He knows there's a risk you could come after him for your share of the house. Odds are very high that idea is enough to keep him at bay. Every single day is another day towards your kids being forever out of his reach. That's worth everything.

I also had a nagging feeling the OP was considering “paying him back” the remainder of the credit-line loan, which is patently absurd in this situation.

@MrsCobraBubbles - it’s easy to tell you’re afraid, please do not reach out and offer to do this. If he has not contacted you or tried to involve you in the real estate transaction, just let it lay. If it gets brought up at some point, were I you I’d say I assumed my portion of the sales proceeds had gone towards it and leave it at that. It would be very hard for him to argue, especially with your legal entitlement to marital property.

You may certainly choose not to answer but why have your lawyers not recommended you put a formal sole-custody arrangement in place? It seems that would give you some peace-of-mind. And without a formal agreement, what would your position be if he asked to see the kids now? Are they not of an age where the courts would take their wishes into consideration? Lastly, if you are afraid for your safety, please, please make your lawyers and the authorities aware.

 

[Darcy03231]

When the house was sold any liens (mortgage, lines of credit, etc.) would have had to have been paid off. New owners get the house free and clear. It may be that he had to bring money to closing to make it happen.

I also was divorced from a deadbeat. I completely get where you're coming from in not chasing your ex down for money. My kids were more important than any small amounts I may have gotten from him. I actually went to court to terminate his parental rights.

 

[cabanafrau]

I also had a nagging feeling the OP was considering “paying him back” the remainder of the credit-line loan, which is patently absurd in this situation.

@MrsCobraBubbles - it’s easy to tell you’re afraid, please do not reach out and offer to do this. If he has not contacted you or tried to involve you in the real estate transaction, just let it lay. If it gets brought up at some point, were I you I’d say I assumed my portion of the sales proceeds had gone towards it and leave it at that. It would be very hard for him to argue, especially with your legal entitlement to marital property.

You may certainly choose not to answer but why have your lawyers not recommended you put a formal sole-custody arrangement in place? It seems that would give you some peace-of-mind. And without a formal agreement, what would your position be if he asked to see the kids now? Are they not of an age where the courts would take their wishes into consideration? Lastly, if you are afraid for your safety, please, please make your lawyers and the authorities aware.

I believe OP mentioned it's the case in her area, as it is here, it's pretty standard across the U.S. for the goal of child custody to be 50/50. While it seems obvious reading what OP has had to say about the situation and accepting it at face value to be truthful, what can be proven in court sometimes isn't so straightforward. OP has alluded to not having much "evidence" of the abusive history. It's not a slam dunk that a judge looking at the situation accepts there is a risk of harm here. Bottom line for OP, doing whatever she can to avoid the children having to be in the care and custody of or visit with their father.

 

[cabanafrau]

When the house was sold any liens (mortgage, lines of credit, etc.) would have had to have been paid off. New owners get the house free and clear. It may be that he had to bring money to closing to make it happen.

I also was divorced from a deadbeat. I completely get where you're coming from in not chasing your ex down for money. My kids were more important than any small amounts I may have gotten from him. I actually went to court to terminate his parental rights.

Terminate his parental rights? On grounds of abandonment?

 

[Darcy03231]

Terminate his parental rights? On grounds of abandonment?

I had a several grounds - abandonment, his criminal drug convictions, his mental health issues, and his abuse.

 

[ronandannette]

I believe OP mentioned it's the case in her area, as it is here, it's pretty standard across the U.S. for the goal of child custody to be 50/50. While it seems obvious reading what OP has had to say about the situation and accepting it at face value to be truthful, what can be proven in court sometimes isn't so straightforward. OP has alluded to not having much "evidence" of the abusive history. It's not a slam dunk that a judge looking at the situation accepts there is a risk of harm here. Bottom line for OP, doing whatever she can to avoid the children having to be in the care and custody of or visit with their father.

I understand - sort of, because it’s outrageous. Here the family courts will take the wishes of older children into account and would not compel adolescents to attend visitation if they themselves were on record as not wanting it.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not pushing that the OP should do anything. It’s just such a crazy, confounding situation. The legal system you describe sounds insane. I fully admit to never having had to deal with anything remotely similar but knowing myself, pretty sure my play would have been to pick up move far away to start over. PA and these circumstances sound miserable.

 

[cabanafrau]

I had a several grounds - abandonment, his criminal drug convictions, his mental health issues, and his abuse.

Severing parental rights is a high bar, for good reason. Clearly in your case it was very necessary.

I understand - sort of, because it’s outrageous. Here the family courts will take the wishes of older children into account and would not compel adolescents to attend visitation if they themselves were on record as not wanting it.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not pushing that the OP should do anything. It’s just such a crazy, confounding situation. The legal system you describe sounds insane. I fully admit to never having had to deal with anything remotely similar but knowing myself, pretty sure my play would have been to pick up move far away to start over. PA and these circumstances sound miserable.

Pick up, move elsewhere and understand that you have now clearly demonstrated to the court that you are more than 50-percent responsible for non cooperative parenting AND are willing to defy court orders which require permission of the court to make a major relocation away from the other parent. It won't be easy to hide, therefore it will be easy to be caught and have your children placed in the primary custody of a potentially abusive parent. If you're not prosecuted criminally you still will likely have little to no access to your children -- and likely face visitation under supervision. Federal guidelines in the U.S. favor 50/50 custody under the presumption that children benefit the most from full access to both parents. Ideally that's true. The reality is that in many cases it's not sunshine and lollipops, cut and dried. Many times it's difficult for a court or court investigators to get an accurate assessment. Even family and friends might get the wrong idea of the reality and be completely bamboozled by a really good con job from only hearing one side of a story.

 

[siren0119]

OP, I feel for you and your situation. Was married to a verbal abuser in Philadelphia, and can say from experience that PA courts not only push for 50/50 visitation but can lean in favor of the fathers. They are ZERO help in getting child support, once support is established they give them many many chances to fail, and will garnish taxes/wages long before they would even start the process for arrest. If he's smart about hiding money like my ex was, the amount of income they'd use to calculate your support would be laughable and the check you may or may not ever see would be a pittance.

As far as moving away...that does get sketchy. I moved my son back to MA when I left my ex, and the ONLY reason the courts didn't punish me for it (or demand that I move back to PA) was because the night I left, I had my ex sign something clearly stating he knew where we were going, what address and phone # to find me at, etc. During our custody hearing he and his "lawyer" tried to frame it that I had kidnapped our son, then my lawyer produced the document with his signature on it. And they still gave us 50/50 visitation with the burden on me to transport my son since I was the one that moved away. PA courts are no fun to deal with.

OP - if you have any concerns for your safety I would talk to both your lawyer and whatever groups exist in your area to support women. Going to the police won't do much good at this stage because he hasn't yet made any viable threats. But get some advice on how to protect yourself and your kids, because your safety is the MOST important thing. Hopefully your ex was not smart enough to read the fine print, and just took his check from the house sale assuming it was everything he was due.

 

[focusondisney]

My name was not on the title, but in our state all assets and debts acquired during a marriage are shared (there are a few exceptions in the property laws but the lawyers assured me I was entitled to half the house if I wanted to fight for it).

The rest of it is complicated, but I gave up my claim to everything. You're right, custody and support are separate. There is no custody agreement and no support order. The reason there is no order is because he has legally abandoned his kids at this point. I can file for the abandonment but a judge will still give him a chance to have custody or visitation of the kids if he says he wants it and I don't want to do anything to provoke that. I know that seems crazy, and it makes me uncomfortable to not have an official order, but one of the attorneys I consulted deals with abuse cases and she advised me not to fight him if I don't need the money.

It's hard to explain this to people because they never understand but you have to trust me that my ex-husband is not the kind of man that you want to fight. I have very little documentation about the years of abuse, just a couple of text messages and emails where I was able to provoke him into admitting some stuff after we separated, but even that is shaky. And I never filed for a PFA in all the years of marriage and even after some incidents after we separated, so doing so now when there has been no contact for so long would look bad. The abuse lawyer told me this. Two lawyers looked at what I had and told me I didn't have a good case, that there was no good outcome when you consider the circumstances, especially the fact that fighting him for money leaves my kids vulnerable if I end up with the wrong judge. I don't make much, my income is under $30,000/year including the SSI money that I receive for my son who has special needs. I'm not comfortable saying any more than that, but I'm over the income limit for free legal help in my state. The price I was quoted for reduced price legal help was $70/hour, which adds up quick! So I retained a lawyer on my own to file for a quick (cheap) divorce, but she warned me that doing so means I give up all my rights to marital assets. He got everything, the house and most of it's contents, vehicles, retirement accounts, etc. and I've accepted that because every day that the kids and I are free we win, as far as I'm concerned. At this point I'm not worried about the money, I've already given it up, I'm just worried about provoking him. I had accepted that I was going to have to pay off the line of credit, I truly don't care about it because it's just money. I don't want to face what will happen if he is angry about having to pay off the line of credit and I don't really understand how the payoff works.

Thank you for answering. I am so sorry for everything you have gone thru. You have done a great job getting you & your kids out of that situation. One thing that sticks out tho is how much he is still impacting your life by how afraid of him you still are. I hope you have a good support system or that you can get some counseling to help you get on with your life. You shouldn’t have to keep living in fear.

 

[MrsCobraBubbles]

I'm going to update. I called the bank about an hour ago, they kind of sounded like they thought I was crazy for asking who paid off my own loan, and put me on hold for a long time while they verified ALL of my information. They said that my ex-husband's name was on the check and that there was a note in the system that he requested that the loan be paid off and closed. At least I know now. And I realize now that I didn't ask when the check was written but I guess at this point it doesn't matter, clearly it was weeks ago. Thank you everyone for your help. The kids and I are doing well now because I am blessed with lots of helpful family and friends nearby, it's nice to know I have supportive internet friends as well

 

[Cindy's Mom]

go to your county website and put the property tax ID number in, see if the new owner is on the taxes, or just go to the county and pay a few bucks to get a copy of the new mortgage/deed on that property. If it was a cash deal - there won't be anything, but there will be tax info.

 

[MrsCobraBubbles]

I also had a nagging feeling the OP was considering “paying him back” the remainder of the credit-line loan, which is patently absurd in this situation.

@MrsCobraBubbles - it’s easy to tell you’re afraid, please do not reach out and offer to do this. If he has not contacted you or tried to involve you in the real estate transaction, just let it lay. If it gets brought up at some point, were I you I’d say I assumed my portion of the sales proceeds had gone towards it and leave it at that. It would be very hard for him to argue, especially with your legal entitlement to marital property.

You may certainly choose not to answer but why have your lawyers not recommended you put a formal sole-custody arrangement in place? It seems that would give you some peace-of-mind. And without a formal agreement, what would your position be if he asked to see the kids now? Are they not of an age where the courts would take their wishes into consideration? Lastly, if you are afraid for your safety, please, please make your lawyers and the authorities aware.

The lawyers told me that filing for custody leaves my kids vulnerable, especially my younger child. My son is 16 and most likely would not be forced to see his dad, but my daughter is only 8 and she is at the mercy of the family court judge. I collected what I could to prove his abuse, but he never physically harmed our daughter so the lawyers told me that if he decides he wants visitation he will probably get it. And I can't really fight that except to specify that the visitation be supervised, and then I could be responsible for paying for the supervision. I have a friend whose abusive husband forced visitation with his teenage sons who didn't want to see him, but the judge ordered visitation because her ex-husband insisted, and now she has to force her teenage sons to see their dad and she has to pay a constable to supervise each visit. Like I said before, the system is broken.

In our state, without a formal custody order the parent who has physical possession of the kids has "custody" of them. Which is why I wouldn't allow our daughter to visit him without me being present after we separated and he made some threats about taking her. If I were to leave her with him, or if he did something like pick her up from school, the police couldn't get her back for me until I filed for emergency custody. My lawyer assured me that at this point if he did something crazy like trying to take the kids I have enough evidence of his abandonment, abuse, his mental illness, history of anger issues, and the abuse of our son, that a judge would write an order to return the kids to me.

It's obvious that he doesn't care about his kids, since he has made no attempts to see them in 2 years, but he's not above using them to threaten me and he has done that for a very long time. Going for a formal termination of rights was risky before the 2 years of abandonment, but they warned that even after we reached the 2 year milestone there would be risk. All he has to do is tell a family court judge that he wants to see his kids and then he is back in our lives, controlling everything and dragging us through heck. So we are just stuck and unless something in my life dramatically changes there is no good reason to file for custody. He threatened when I left that I would never get support and I believe it, he is good at hiding his money and he works in the trades so there is no end to the amount of work he can find under the table. Our current situation works because all he cares about is his money and all I care about is my kids, so we both have what we want right now even if we are stuck in limbo over custody.

 

[MrsCobraBubbles]

OP, I feel for you and your situation. Was married to a verbal abuser in Philadelphia, and can say from experience that PA courts not only push for 50/50 visitation but can lean in favor of the fathers. They are ZERO help in getting child support, once support is established they give them many many chances to fail, and will garnish taxes/wages long before they would even start the process for arrest. If he's smart about hiding money like my ex was, the amount of income they'd use to calculate your support would be laughable and the check you may or may not ever see would be a pittance.

As far as moving away...that does get sketchy. I moved my son back to MA when I left my ex, and the ONLY reason the courts didn't punish me for it (or demand that I move back to PA) was because the night I left, I had my ex sign something clearly stating he knew where we were going, what address and phone # to find me at, etc. During our custody hearing he and his "lawyer" tried to frame it that I had kidnapped our son, then my lawyer produced the document with his signature on it. And they still gave us 50/50 visitation with the burden on me to transport my son since I was the one that moved away. PA courts are no fun to deal with.

OP - if you have any concerns for your safety I would talk to both your lawyer and whatever groups exist in your area to support women. Going to the police won't do much good at this stage because he hasn't yet made any viable threats. But get some advice on how to protect yourself and your kids, because your safety is the MOST important thing. Hopefully your ex was not smart enough to read the fine print, and just took his check from the house sale assuming it was everything he was due.

I'm sorry

I've heard so many horror stories about the PA court system over these last few years.