uPDx Sneakiness

[Duck_Borders]

Hi Everyone,

I'm posting this on behalf of a friend of mine in Vancouver who is going through a divorce with what appears to be an undiagnosed personality disorder husband.  I won't go into details about their relationship, except to say they have slept in separate bedrooms and not been intimate in over 8 years and they have a 7 year old daughter.  The lack of intimacy was not my friends choice - her husband just suddenly disconnected around the time she got pregnant. 

Her husband has been dragging out marriage counselling (never went) and divorce for the last 4 years. 

He refused to sign anything to sell their house until the last 3 months (they missed the hot housing market and probably lost close to $50,000 because he refused for so long)

In order to drop the house price so that it would sell, he made her agree that he could keep profits of roughly $50,000 of marital property that he sold.

He has been on disability and employment insurance (In Canada that's when you get paid by the government if you get laid off) for roughly 2 years.  He is capable of working, he just chooses not to and abuses the system.

He is an alcoholic, with possible pain med addictions.

He is suspected of having some ties to drug dealers or other illegal activities, but nothing is proven or confirmed.

He spends very minimal amounts of time with their daughter.  Usually only on weekends where he takes her to a karate class or swimming lessons.

My friend's Mother lives in their basement suite and has been the primary caretaker of the daughter other than my friend.

They finally just sold their house.  My friend is looking for a new house, because Vancouver's real estate market is so hot, she is looking at a downgrade in both neighbourhood and possibly size.  Her Mother and her are going to get a new house together.

Prior to getting laid off, her husband made significantly more money than her.  But he has not worked legitimately for 2 years.  He does do under the table jobs.  His expenses on paper are far more than his income.

She is worried that her husband is going to claim child support and spousal support.  Which is a big deal because my friend only makes about $35,000/year.  Combined with a very high cost of living, and child support would make it so that she cannot realistically afford to live in Vancouver.

The realtor that her husband demanded they use is a friend of the husband's.  It is suspected that the realtor and the husband had a back door deal going.

Her husband just announced to her tonight that the people that purchased their marital home are "investors".  The husband will be renting the marital home back from the investors for himself.

Here's my question:  Does this give the husband an advantage in a custody case if he rents the marital home?

This whole situation is ass backwards.  Is there any legal issues that my friend can raise with what the husband has done? 

Thanks,
Duck

[whirlpoollife]

Even if she agreed to it, he received 50k , which is more than the 35k she earns.  So he might have to pay the spousal support . I received an inheritance which included a capital gain from the sale of a house , therefore I had to pay xh spousal support from that because for that year it gave me higher income than my imputed homemaker income.    I went through a long divorce which xh received more than half of the equity of the marital home. Is their home in both their names ?  Even if not , she is entitled to at least half of the increase in value of the home from the day they were married.  That's in my state here in US.
But maybe the strategy of letting him have the profit might work for the spousal support from him. 
As for child support my xh has been unemployed for some time now. Even though I still pay the retractive spousal support to him, he still owes child support ( long story , it's low $) which comes off his unemployment ( if disability it would come off that ) . All of the supports go though the state before its received.  So it  might be different in Canada.  The child support is calculated on the number of overnights one has over the other. So she defiantly needs to have more custody time for D.
Her x2b h chooses not to work so his income can be imputed to his last earnings.
Before the divorce gets furthear she should get as much financial papers as she can and make copies of all. Bank accounts and all on the house . A paper trail of the purchase , the sale and where the money is. And without x2b knowing she is making copies.
Does she have an attorney?  If not she needs to because he will just keep on bullying her.

[ForeverDad]

It sounds like his demands and ultimatums have caused her to weaken her boundaries.  She she has the feeling, to make any progress I have to give in to my spouse.  Well, sound like she should have filed for divorce years ago.  The courts have standard processes to handle many of the issues.  Yes, courts prefer settlements but if unable to reach a middle ground, the court will make the decisions.  Problem is that while she's stuck in her dilemma between poor choices he's allowing her, the choices are getting worse at each step.

Now, though, it sounds like he's posing as an long term leech.  I don't know how the court would handle that.  What she can do is to take a stance that (1) he should be imputed with an income potential that is in line with his skills and (2) he should resume working.  She can't enforce the second but that shouldn't matter much if the first goal of having his income level imputed is accepted by the court.

Has she gotten legal consultations?  She needs to find out where she stands now and what actions to take (or avoid) in order to improve her financial position and regain some control of her life.  Time to stop listening to his demands and take charge of her life and her future.  Remind her that such consultations are confidential, she does not confess or divulge to spouse anything learned there.

Meanwhile is her status as primary parent documented?  Can she respond well with good objections if her spouse demands more parenting time than he historically has done?  Is she the one with most contact with pediatricians, school and elsewhere?

[Duck_Borders]

Thanks for the replies! 

New development:  Ex Husband refuses to sign separation agreement, after accepted offer on sale of marital house.  First problem with no separation agreement is my friend cannot purchase a new house without it.  Obviously there are many other problems due to no separation agreement.

She was trying to avoid a $5,000 retainer for a lawyer.  She's already met with one she likes.  I told her to contact him and ask to pay him hourly for his advice until she is certain that she needs to go into battle mode and pay the $5,000 retainer. 

I figured she has a few options right now:

A)  Refuse to sign cheque for sale of house until separation agreement is signed.  This could backfire and leave them both screwed if ex husband still won't sign separation agreement.

B)  Cash marital house cheque.  Put new house entirely in her mother's name, get a friend to sign rental agreement (required by bank as Mother's income not sufficient to carry mortgage)

C)  Try to have a calm chat with ex husband and say that if he won't sign separation agreement, she will have no choice but to involve divorce lawyers, and that means everyone loses. 



Any other options?  Thoughts?

Thanks!

Duck

[livednlearned]

The laws are so different, even here in the US between states. Your advice encouraging her to consult (hourly) with an L first is good. She will find out where the lines in the sand are.

The husband sounds underhanded and controlling. Strategically, it may be best for your friend to lay low and give him the illusion of control, meanwhile talk to an L (discretely) and define her goals and put together a strategy.

In other words, no calm chats with husband. No showing her hand. Run through the different scenarios with an L and find out what her options are.

[Duck_Borders]

Thanks for all the input guys!

Since I was abruptly introduced to this useless system, dominated by soul suckers (aka personality disorders) I've always said "If they took the money out of it, people would stop fighting".  By that I mean, stop with this percentage based child support.  I think there should be a flat fee support regardless of income and no loopholes (aka no ways for scumbag lawyers to manipulate the system).  (I am not talking about alimony or support for one partner that stayed home for many years and took care of the family - that's an entirely different animal)

Anyways, I told my friend she should work something out with her ex that guarantees no support payments made by either side, and even if the state (province) mandates something, they agree to split the payment between the two of them and put it in a trust account for the kid. 

Long story short - the fighting stopped immediately as soon as they both signed and agreed to that.  So now that there's no money in the game, the daughter will live primarily with the Mother, which is waaaaaaay better for the daughter than living 50% with a pain pill addicted alcoholic, and she'll see her Dad liberally whenever she wants, he'll take her to swimming lessons and karate, etc. 

They also did an agreement for the child (cute one) stating that Mommy and Daddy will talk to each other on the phone weekly, they'll do activities as a family all 3 of them once a month, etc etc etc.


So what I'm trying to say is money is the root of all these !@@#ing problems and if the court would just wake up and stop giving these deranged personality disorders a platform to fight on, everyone would be better off.

Really happy for my friend and her family.  Really sad for the rest of us that are stuck in this crazy never ending nightmare. 

Mental illness sucks.

(Mic Drop)

Duck

[ForeverDad]

While that worked for them, and I'm glad for them that it has expectations to work, there are all sorts of PD flavors and intensities out there.

My Ex seemed to be more focused on blocking my parenting.  I'm sure money was an issue but not the only one.  I recall when we were doing our last minute settlement negotiations on Trial Day — she had such a good temp order that she had no incentive to negotiate earlier during the prior 21 months of divorce process.  I made a stand then, if we settled then I would be Residential Parent.  She begged to remain that, but when she offered to give up her interest in the house's equity, our only asset besides my small retirement account, her lawyer promptly pulled her aside and and she withdrew that.  I'm sure he reminded her he was expecting to get paid with some of her marital equity in the house.

I don't know the laws in that province or country, but in the USA I believe most laws say a parent always has the option to recalculation of child support even if they previously agreed to ignore it.  So it's good that they have the agreement to put child support, if any, be placed in trust for the child such as for education, etc.  It defuses a lot of the bad feelings and is transformed into the child's benefit. It defangs that part of the conflict.

By the way, that is a concept mentioned here when members report their court refuses to make sanctions in Contempt of Court hearings.  Courts seem to be very reluctant to make one parent the loser and the other the winner.  By asking that any sanctions be paid into a trust account for the children that approach may sidestep that reluctance of the court since the child will eventually benefit.  After all, one of the court's mandates is to act in the best interests of the children.

[Duck_Borders]

Yes totally agree.  She's putting her new house and everything she can into her mothers name so there's nothing for her ex or lawyers to go after in the future.