Brief update, & questions about discovery documents

[kells76]

Hey all, it's been a while -- thanks for still being here. We've been up & down over the last few months. Time with the kids was rough for a bit but it's been pretty positive the last few weeks. Still, long story short, there's a way in which I'm really, really looking forward to court. Trial is mid-October, so we're in the discovery process right now.

Apparently all Mom wants in terms of docs is financials from us. I think she wants to contest the change in CS that DH put in the proposal. Silly Mom, didn't she know that DH was overpaying already? Anyway, we need to submit loan info, and I thought I'd ask here first if anyone else has submitted college loan info and what specific paperwork they turned in. DH is wondering if he just needs to print out the latest balance statement, or if there's more info about his school loan that he should give.

Mom also wants docs on any "titles" we have. We don't own a home (renting) and have the one car, but also own some camping land way outside of town. Technically I paid for all of it before DH & I got married, but both our names are on the title. I'm guessing that regardless of who paid for it, all that matters is who is on the title, so if DH is on there, it gets submitted -- correct?

Thanks in advance -- it means a lot. Hopefully more updates later.

[Thunderstruck]

Apparently all Mom wants in terms of docs is financials from us. I think she wants to contest the change in CS that DH put in the proposal. Silly Mom, didn't she know that DH was overpaying already? Anyway, we need to submit loan info, and I thought I'd ask here first if anyone else has submitted college loan info and what specific paperwork they turned in. DH is wondering if he just needs to print out the latest balance statement, or if there's more info about his school loan that he should give.

I would think just the monthly statements should be fine. Does it say how far back they need it? (3 month? 6 months?)

Mom also wants docs on any "titles" we have. We don't own a home (renting) and have the one car, but also own some camping land way outside of town. Technically I paid for all of it before DH & I got married, but both our names are on the title. I'm guessing that regardless of who paid for it, all that matters is who is on the title, so if DH is on there, it gets submitted -- correct?

Correct. DH and I were unmarried at the time of his initial discovery (we were engaged) but I had added him as an authorized user on MY credit cards and we still had to submit alllllll those statements because his name was on them.

[ForeverDad]

What are your state's requirements and local applications?  Overall they're mostly consistent but the specifics can vary from state to state.

[kells76]

Thank you guys a bunch  

Yeah, I think she gave a time frame, I'll just double check what she requested.

FD, would I find our state's discovery requirements at our state court's web site? County courts?  (I'll do a google search myself asap).

[whirlpoollife]

Is the discovery for CS or division of marital assets?

If you paid for property , car or land, then you will need the paper trail that you owned it prior to marriage to DH.  That way  it should not then be part of marital asset division even if his name is on anything post seperation. 

College  loans, not sure but it is a debt. They will look for who's name is on the loan and when it accured.

For child support in my case they looked at income or imputed income, not debts, but maybe  college loans get factored in there, not sure.

I spent weeks on the discovery requested from xh.  On stuff that was so irrelevant on division of marital assets. But maybe it helped the L's see what was what so they have a clear piciture to go on , not just rumors from x spouse.

[ForeverDad]

My story... .  We never had interrogatories during the divorce.  But years later when I was seeking sole custody, her lawyer sent a long divorce-oriented questionnaire with the standard 30 days time frame.  Then her lawyer ignored my lawyer's calls and that got him so peeved he wrote up a counter-questionnaire.  I sent over 600 pages.  She sent... .nothing.

What I should have done was tell my lawyer to inform her lawyer that our papers were ready and ask for a date and time to exchange our respective responses.  Forget the Nice Guy or Nice Gal persona.  In that scenario I wouldn't have cared if they had complained to the court about noncompliance, my defense would have been, "But judge, we're prepared to exchange, they're the ones who won't come forward."  Of course that would require your lawyer to send your own matching discovery or interrogatories.

I was all freaked out but it turned out to be a ton of fretting, in my case, over nothing.

[kells76]

Hey WPL, here's the short backstory -- DH & his uBPDxw divorced 5 yrs ago. He's paid over guideline CS out of system since then. PP was just one line -- that he could be with the kids whenever he wasn't at work. Guess how well that went 

They had mediation last fall & came out with a new detailed PP. First weekend he was supposed to have kids under new PP, sd10 flipped out & said she wasn't going. Mom has been unwilling to actually enforce PP (though she describes herself as bending over backwards to "encourage" the kids to go) so DH filed a... .um... .not sure the exact type of doc but (I think) a motion for 50/50 PT plus a PC & family counselor -- the type of thing where if Mom hadn't responded, DH would "win" by default. Mom is not agreeing to PC at all, so things are pointing to trial, and that's what discovery is for (I'm still new to this process so apologies if I missed on the terminology). So, fortunately, no division of marital assets going on now.

FD, DH sent discovery to them first -- blogs, social media, journals, emails, photos, anything/everything she may have said about kids for last 5 yrs at least. After that we got Mom's request which was just financials from us. Mom doesn't work and I'm the breadwinner for my/DH's home so this will be interesting. And good tip on waiting to do an "exchange". Mom has a tendency to use any and all info provided to her and twist it, so any buffer against that is good.