Thursday, July 11, 2013

What to do when your spouse is draining the accounts.



Temporary Orders

A divorce can take several years to be complete.  Even a simple divorce with only a few contested issues will take several months to be finalized.  The question I am asked quite often is:  “What happens while the divorce is pending?” If there are no court orders in place, each party is free to do what they want to.  I often hear the complaint that the other party has drained the bank accounts or that they have been selling off property and hiding the proceeds.  While a claim can always be made for depletion of the marital estate, it is only that – a claim.  The spouse taking the assets in the mean time has all the control and gets to benefit from the proceeds during the divorce.  This situation can leave one party destitute and without the financial means to protect themselves in the divorce.

The simple solution to this problem is to file for temporary orders when the divorce petition is filed.  doing so will get you before the court within approximately 30 days.  You will ask the court to set orders in place to provide for the finances and to protect the martial assets.  Another typical order is to set forth who is paying the debts and what amounts are to be paid.  A divorcing couple’s credit is often destroyed during a divorce not because they do not have the money to pay, but because they do not want to pay.  

Filing for temporary orders is often not that expensive and can save you time and money down the road.  If a party violates the temporary orders, they can be held in contempt for failure to follow the court’s orders.  A court can fine, assess attorney’s fees and costs, and/or put a party in jail for failure to follow its orders. 

For more information contact Attorney Drew at andrew@gillilandlaw.com or visit www.attorneydrew.com

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