Finally got a response to my custody mod filing from uPDxw

[VIDEO: "What is parental alienation?"]

She waited until the very, very last day to file it before missing the deadline.  I'd been watching the county court's website, and there had not been any kind of response 6 days past the deadline shown on their database.  So I stopped by the courthouse and asked to see the official file.  Turned out to be in a judge's office.  So the clerk kindly called the judge's assistant, she found the file, told me there was a response, and if I wanted, she'd make a copy for me.  The court clerk was surprised it was 6 days past filing it and it wasn't in the database.  She said they had a procedure that usually it was shown within 24 hours.  I said "Oops!".

Anyway, the judge's assistant gave me the paperwork and told me they were working with the L's to schedule a temporary hearing.

uPDxw response didn't say much.  Just denied that S9's education has any problems, and then she filed a motion for me to pay her legal fees.  She's claiming poverty and that she makes less than $10,000 a year because she's a student.  She owns a house, has to make payments, has to pay basic utility bills, phone, gas for car, insurance, groceries, clothes, has taken a few trips to Scotland that I can show, etc.  She's also already got 4 year bachelors degree in marketing, and has at various points in the past made upwards of $40k per year.  She's capable of working and $10,000 isn't even minimum wage at full time.  Not to mention I'm pretty sure she's lying about her income to start with.  I can look up her property info. with the county easy enough, and her house payments have got to be in the $700-$750 range.  Add up the mortgage and even minimal estimates of expenses for a year and she's at $20k per year spending minimum.  She made something like $25k per year right after the divorce working at a daycare center full time.

If she's a student and so busy, how can she home school S9 effectively?  If she claims between her own classes and home schooling she can't work enough to support herself, is it really in S9's interest for his mother to home school him at such a huge financial burden to herself?  I mean, what if she can't make the mortgage and gets foreclosed?  I say better for me to have primary custody, S9 to go to school, and have a healthy visitation with his mom.  He can be taken care of, get a good education, have a good relationship with his mom, but also be insulated from any negative impacts due to her poor choices.

I'll not be agreeing to pay her costs, obviously.  It's also her 3rd lawyer since the original divorce. 

I scanned the docs in and emailed them to L.  Haven't heard back and don't expect to yet.  There's not much to talk about at the moment, so I'm not contacting L about anything right now.  Don't want to use up my retainer to reassure my own anxious feelings!

[Waddams]

She waited until the very, very last day to file it before missing the deadline.  I'd been watching the county court's website, and there had not been any kind of response 6 days past the deadline shown on their database.  So I stopped by the courthouse and asked to see the official file.  Turned out to be in a judge's office.  So the clerk kindly called the judge's assistant, she found the file, told me there was a response, and if I wanted, she'd make a copy for me.  The court clerk was surprised it was 6 days past filing it and it wasn't in the database.  She said they had a procedure that usually it was shown within 24 hours.  I said "Oops!".

Anyway, the judge's assistant gave me the paperwork and told me they were working with the L's to schedule a temporary hearing.

uPDxw response didn't say much.  Just denied that S9's education has any problems, and then she filed a motion for me to pay her legal fees.  She's claiming poverty and that she makes less than $10,000 a year because she's a student.  She owns a house, has to make payments, has to pay basic utility bills, phone, gas for car, insurance, groceries, clothes, has taken a few trips to Scotland that I can show, etc.  She's also already got 4 year bachelors degree in marketing, and has at various points in the past made upwards of $40k per year.  She's capable of working and $10,000 isn't even minimum wage at full time.  Not to mention I'm pretty sure she's lying about her income to start with.  I can look up her property info. with the county easy enough, and her house payments have got to be in the $700-$750 range.  Add up the mortgage and even minimal estimates of expenses for a year and she's at $20k per year spending minimum.  She made something like $25k per year right after the divorce working at a daycare center full time.

If she's a student and so busy, how can she home school S9 effectively?  If she claims between her own classes and home schooling she can't work enough to support herself, is it really in S9's interest for his mother to home school him at such a huge financial burden to herself?  I mean, what if she can't make the mortgage and gets foreclosed?  I say better for me to have primary custody, S9 to go to school, and have a healthy visitation with his mom.  He can be taken care of, get a good education, have a good relationship with his mom, but also be insulated from any negative impacts due to her poor choices.

I'll not be agreeing to pay her costs, obviously.  It's also her 3rd lawyer since the original divorce. 

I scanned the docs in and emailed them to L.  Haven't heard back and don't expect to yet.  There's not much to talk about at the moment, so I'm not contacting L about anything right now.  Don't want to use up my retainer to reassure my own anxious feelings!

[david]

My ex drags things out too. I filed last August to modify custody. My point was that ex has majority of time with kids during the school year and the boys do the majority of their homework when with me. They did over 90% of their homework with me last year. I have copies of everyone. Half of what our S10 did last year with her was so incorrect it made my atty laugh when he seen them.

I filed last August and ex just dragged it out. We had out last eval meeting last week.

I thought ex would have started having the boys do their homework this year since I filed right before school started. She hasn't changed a thing ?

Steady as she goes. 

[ForeverDad]

Of course she claimed what she claimed.  What else could a pwBPD do, agree with you?

However, her tax filings ought to prove or disprove her earnings unless she's working off the books.  Documentation will support you, she doesn't have any.

[Waddams]

Of course she claimed what she claimed.  What else could a pwBPD do, agree with you?

I wasn't expecting agreement.  I was expecting some other out of left field accusations in her response, and there were none.  I guess she's got a lawyer that's better than the last one.  Unfortunately.

However, her tax filings ought to prove or disprove her earnings unless she's working off the books.  Documentation will support you, she doesn't have any.

She doesn't have a regular job where she'd get a W2 anymore.  She's self employed, selling tree removal/pruning/maintenance/planting services for the company of her boyfriend.  Or one of her boyfriends.  I know she also has her own company established for tree services, but I don't know exactly what she does with it.

I do suspect some funny accounting and tax reporting on her part though.  I can't really summon up enough emotion to care about her honesty regarding her finances though.  I'd rather just ask the judge to impune the equivalent of a full time minimum wage job on her and be done with that particular subject.  Whatever her income is, with the way my state's child support guidelines work, whether she's really making $20k-$30k, factored into the formula with my income, her income won't make the ordered amounts of child support come out much different.  Definitely not different enough to justify the added legal expense of going through a lot of financial discovery and figuring out her truthful exact income figures. 

To sum up, I don't want to spend an extra $5k in legal fees to make a difference of only $10 a month in the final formula output.  It's just not worth it.

I do think her chances of getting awarded attorney's fees are pretty low.  I've been researching it in my state, and it's very rare.  Particularly when the plaintiff has a bonafide case. 

[Matt]

Some thoughts... .

First, find out how your court "imputes" income.  Where I live, either party can ask the court to appoint someone to conduct a study.  My wife did that - there is a company that does it - they interviewed me and wrote a report recommending what income should be "imputed" to me, since I was not working at that time.  My wife had to pay the company - about $2,000 if I remember right.

(The ironic thing is, I had already agreed to a number, based on my past income, and the company my wife's lawyer chose came up with a lower number.  So I agreed to their number.  Then my wife's lawyer argued that it should be higher - she argued with the company she had chosen and who had been paid with her client's money, and of course the lawyer then billed my wife for her time to fight over this issue.  If she had just accepted the number I put forward in the first place, her client would have been better off.)

In some places, because of the bad economy, courts now impute only minimum wage, and that might apply in your case.  40 hours per week X 50 weeks per year X minimum wage, minus taxes.

It may not be an expensive issue to fight over.

I would be careful about focusing on her costs, like her mortgage, because the higher they are, the stronger her case that she can't afford legal fees, and that she needs child support and alimony.  Focus instead on her excess spending, like vacations, if you can document that, and on her ability to earn.  There are web sites that say what a professional with a given education can be expected to earn in each part of the country - find some of those and show that they all say someone with her education should be earning much more than $10,000.  If you can also find employment statistics showing that people with her education can find good jobs, that will help too.

Without incurring a lot of legal costs, I think it is worthwhile to challenge any statement she makes which you know is not true.  For example, if she put into a court document that she only makes $10,000 a year, and you know that her income is much higher, your lawyer can probably tell you what you can do about that - can you ask for her tax returns, for example? - and if you can take a few simple steps like that, and show a pattern of false statements to the court, that will not only help you with those specific issues, it will also show the court that she cannot be trusted, and that may help your case a lot.  When there are other issues which can't easily be proven - "he said she said" - you will be believed and she won't.

[Waddams]

Around here, even for someone that doesn't/hasn't been working, mostly they just impune full time at minimum wage, about $20k per year if there's nothing else to go on.

Her expenses can't be very much.  Nothing that any normal, degree'd and educated person shouldn't be able to handle.  My own are a lot higher.

I've already dug out a bunch of stuff off various websites showing what even entry level people with her degree, and with in the trees/arborism field make, adjusted for cost of living in this area.  It's a lot more than $10k per year, I'll tell you that.

As for her financial documentation, I'm thinking we'd need to get records via discovery of both her own personal accounts, and her business accounts.  She could be using her business accounts to pay for personal expenses, and we'd only see that via her actual bank statements I believe.  Between the two she can play all kinds of games with her taxes to manipulate herself into lower to no income.  I have a tax guy that used to work for the IRS for 20 years and he'd be able to help me figure out the tax angles.  If it comes to that. 

I can see the value in showing her to be dishonest by getting the records and going through them.  At the same time, I also want to minimize expenses because as I stated above, in the end, I don't think it will make a big difference in the final numbers when they come out of the state formula. 

[PinkieV]

Our BM works as a waitress at a chain restaurant during the day - so not the best tips, etc.  Last week she started a company with a friend.  So . . . because she's "so poor", she asked in her parenting plan for DH to pay 100% of SS13's travel expenses until she makes 40% of DH's pay.  Like she's ever going to report that much!  That was a big NOPE!

When we were at the last court hearing (which was continued until early June), her lawyer told DH's lawyer that she may settle if we 1) paid for the first year of travel, and 2) dropped asking for the attorney's fees.  We told our lawyer we would consider that since we don't want my older SS to have to testify, and the stress is getting to SS13.  We received her proposed parenting plan this week, and on top of the 40% clause for travel, DH would have to pay the same for mediation, and besides paying for the standard holiday and break trips, also a 3-day weekend every other month, plus two 2-day weekends per month, should she request them.  Yeah, NOPE!

We countered with the original parenting plan, just clarifying EVERYTHING to avoid as many future problems as possible.  We even offered to pay the first year's travel.  But we held out attorney's fees.  And she didn't mention them, so if she agrees, we're going to go for them.  If she doesn't agree, we're going for every last thing the GAL recommended.  I'd love to screw her to the wall, but in the end, if we keep SS13 and minimize the damage, that's a good thing.