Leaving BPD wife and need advise on joint car loans/title

[bpdsupport]

Hello,

We live in California, have two kids, D3 and D4. and have two cars. She has the SUV, 2013, bought in Dec 2012 with five years payment plan(high monthly payment), and I have a Sudan, 2010, bought in May 2013, with five years payment plan(lower monthly payment). I need to know how this is usually handled without ruining my credit. We obviously won't be able to make payments after living in two different apartments. (Might be able to pay for the Sudan, which I am driving).

She won't agree on anything I offered, 1, sell the car back to the dealer, 2, take out money from 401k, pay off cars, sell them split the money or keep them. 3, refinance each car under whomever drives it... She wants to choose the worst route, which is get both cars repossessed. Thank you for your support

[seeking balance]

Hello,

We live in California, have two kids, D3 and D4. and have two cars. She has the SUV, 2013, bought in Dec 2012 with five years payment plan(high monthly payment), and I have a Sudan, 2010, bought in May 2013, with five years payment plan(lower monthly payment). I need to know how this is usually handled without ruining my credit. We obviously won't be able to make payments after living in two different apartments. (Might be able to pay for the Sudan, which I am driving).

She won't agree on anything I offered, 1, sell the car back to the dealer, 2, take out money from 401k, pay off cars, sell them split the money or keep them. 3, refinance each car under whomever drives it... She wants to choose the worst route, which is get both cars repossessed. Thank you for your support

CA is a no fault state and very clear on guidelines - this is good and bad... .

At this point, you really do need to consult with a couple of attorneys so you can get the ball rolling on filing, it is really the only way to have documentation.  But right now, there is not a lot you can "make" her do.  BPD is highly triggered in her.  In your other thread I suggested getting Splitting by Bill Eddy so you understand the waters you are navigating.

Do not do anything financially without speaking to some attorneys is my 2 cents.

Best,

SB

[ForeverDad]

The financials are somewhat structured so they're more or less predictable, though there is a lot of give and take on the solutions arrived at.  For example, start with His assets, Her assets and Our assets.  It can get a bit complicated, for example the 401(k).  Are the balance before marriage considered separate and individual assets, or are they part of the community property?  How do they allocate the gain/loss since marriage on those amounts?  Do you each have to split your married contributions?  Do you share your premarital debt or keep it individual?

Once you have some of the basic information down, you can see the ways to equalize who gets what.  It sounds like both cars are expensive and neither car is an asset, right?  Turning them in for less expensive vehicles may sense, it would preserve your credit.  But of course she doesn't care about being reasonable nor your credit rating nor how you're impacted and so she naturally wants to hold on until payments are late, car is repossessed and your credit is dinged.  To a certain extent there's little you can do to avoid getting dinged somehow and somewhere during the divorce.  Your goal needs to be to assess the various risks/benefits and pick, if you can, the least damaging outcomes for you.  So determine which things - besides the kids - are more important than the other things.  (Maybe you shouldn't let her know which ones are important to you or she may try to sabotage you, as in, "If I can't have them then neither will you."

To a great extent the lawyers will make the financial stuff work out, just make sure your lawyer knows what things to swing your way or hers.  Often too the financials are among the last things handled.  So if there are urgent financial issues, try to get them handled at the beginning.  The most gets done at the very beginning with the initial temp order or at the very end with the (possibly settled) final order.  The in-between is a lot of procedures, check lists, continuances and delays.

Yes, your spouse won't agree, that's par for the course for most of us.  But at least you can avoid making poor offers, facing poor choices and getting poor outcomes.  Limit the downside if you can, strategize for maximizing whatever upside you can maneuver.  In the final analysis, the most important assets are the kids and their futures.  That means you need to be as involved in their lives as possible.  Don't default to the stereotyped father who gets barely minimal time with the kids for the next 15 years but gets the maximum taken from his pockets for the next 15 years.  You are not a wallet, you're a father, find a balance between the two.  Likely it will be an uphill struggle but it will be well worth the effort.

[livednlearned]

You will need to lead your attorneys on this one, and push for very exacting language about what your ex must do. For example, if it's determined that both cars must be traded in for cheaper models, then make sure you don't leave anything open-ended around her non-compliance. If her lawyer says she will try to renegotiate terms of the loan to lower payments, then make sure she does it by time/date or else you initiate the trade-in of the vehicles to protect your credit.

Think through every possible way she might obstruct whatever you agree to, and have a consequence for every single thing, including stonewalling or doing nothing.

I don't know if it's possible to take money out of 401Ks without penalty if you do it when the funds are being split, but if so, then maybe set it up so that she can buy the car outright. But she has to do it by xyz date or else you do abc. Make it a goal to protect your credit and lock that language up super tight.

Just because she agrees to it, and it's written in legal language in big black ink, doesn't mean squat. And consequences will be ignored too. But at least when and if you have to re-engage in court, the judge sees that she agreed to this and you might get legal fees awarded. Or the judge will say, "Ms. BPDSupport, you said you would purchase the vehicle, but you haven't. And you say here that if you don't purchase it by date/time, then Mr. BPDSupport can take the car and return it to the dealer. Better get a bus pass, I guess."

Think about car titles too, and how to get your name off her vehicle if she keeps it. I can't even begin to tell you how much head-banging I have had to do about getting the title to my own car. It's too painful to relive it.

[ForeverDad]

Any money coming out of retirement accounts during a divorce from one spouse to the other must to be done by QDRO - Qualified Domestic Relations Order - approved by the court.  It's not cheap, even the online companies charge well over $300 and the local ones are probably at least twice as much.  But beware, moving the money has to be done right.  For example, if you have to pay her then you can't take out the money and hope she does as promised and deposits it into her own retirement account.  What if she doesn't?  Then Uncle Sam will demand the tax and penalty from YOU not her.  The proper way is to create a new tax-deferred account in the recipient's name and then move the money directly there, not letting it get into the ex's hands for even one second until it is in that account.  Then, once it is there safe and sound, it is no longer your liability, ex can do whatever she wants with it, it is safely out of your control and risk.

In my case, I owed my ex some retirement money at the end of the divorce.  Once I had the QDRO in hand, my employer had the administrator create a new account for my ex there in the same plan and those funds were moved to my ex's new tax-deferred account.  Once there it was no longer my money and more importantly no longer my tax liability.  I have no idea what she did with it after that, not my worry.  Likely it's all long gone, but if so my ex was responsible for any tax issues, not me.  I made sure my exposure to nasty surprises was as limited as possible, at least regarding that.