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I got divorced last year in Texas and the car was taken over by my ex.
The loan was in my name, but at as part of the divorce decree she took
responsibility. She has defauled now and the car has been rpossessed.
Do I have any legal leg to stand on?
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In article <u0in21h2a3106lgbr954m3a0pi7caqc72v@4ax.com>,
gasolineman@gmail.com wrote:
I got divorced last year in Texas and the car was taken over by my ex.
The loan was in my name, but at as part of the divorce decree she took
responsibility. She has defauled now and the car has been rpossessed.
Do I have any legal leg to stand on?
Where do you expect to stand? In most of these cases, the ex
"takes resonsibility" in words only, and not legally. Unless
you did a refinance of the car with just her on the loan, you
are most likely now responsible for that loan. They likley
will come after you. The car most likely was not worth what
the loan value was, and the loan company probably sold it at
auction getting wholesale rather than retail. They will want
you to pay the shortage. This happens all the time. Lawyers
routinely give this kind of bad financial advice in divorce
situations, and many men do not stop to think about the
consequences.
-john-
--
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John A. Weeks III 952-432-2708 john@johnweeks.com
Newave Communications http://www.johnweeks.com
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Gasoline asks:
She has defaulted now and the car has been repossessed.
Do I have any legal leg to stand on?
Probably not. It sounds as if it was her car and she decided to let
the repo man take it away from her. That was probably not a very smart
choice, but you're not married to her anymore so it's not really your
problem anymore. (Unless, of course, she has custody of the kids and
now has no car to drive them around in.)
Just of curiosity, what exactly do you want here? Do you want the repo
man to give you the car and let you continue the payments? That's my
guess.
Even if there was a way of assuming your exwife's debt and getting her
car back, it seems like it would be much simpler to just buy another
car altogether.
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gasolineman@gmail.com wrote:
I got divorced last year in Texas and the car was taken over by my ex.
The loan was in my name, but at as part of the divorce decree she took
responsibility. She has defauled now and the car has been rpossessed.
Do I have any legal leg to stand on?
What are you hoping for here? Do you want the car? If so, contact the
finance company and make known your hope.
If the divorce decree explicity states that the car is 100% hers and
she/the court releases you from all debts related to the car as of the
time of the divorce, the finance company should not be able to come back
on you unless there is some strange new law in TX I'm not familiar with.
This may be worth a call to the attorney who handled your divorce.
-paul
ianal
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gasolineman@gmail.com wrote:
I got divorced last year in Texas and the car was taken over by my ex.
The loan was in my name, but at as part of the divorce decree she took
responsibility. She has defauled now and the car has been rpossessed.
Do I have any legal leg to stand on?
I don't see what you're asking. She got the car in the settlement,
and lost it. You're out of the loop. Or are you worried that you
might end up having to supply her another car?
--
This account is subject to a persistent MS Blaster and SWEN attack.
I think I've got the problem resolved, but, if you E-mail me
and it bounces, a second try might work.
However, please reply in newsgroup.
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She has defauled now and the car has been rpossessed.
Do I have any legal leg to stand on?
If as you say she took "responsibility" for the loan than I assume that
you had the auto and loan transferred over to her name after the
divorce. However, your post seems to indicate that for some reason you
failed to do this. Although you don't explain the situation, I assume
that the lender has reposessed the auto, sold it or is going to sell it
at auction, and is going after you for a deficiency. Your legal
recourse if this is the case is to pursue a civil action against your
prior spouse for any deficiency based on your settlement agreement in
the divorce. The lender must file an action against you for the
deficiency, they cannot go after her directly as they do not have
privity of contract with her (ie the loan was in your name, not hers,
so they have to pursue you for the deficiency).
What are you hoping to accomplish here?
-David
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Paul Cassel <pcasselplustwo@comcast.net> wrote in
news:ftev2114qtclq3k6nbd89n73g4k9s8o8rq@4ax.com:
gasolineman@gmail.com wrote:
What are you hoping for here? Do you want the car? If so, contact the
finance company and make known your hope.
If the divorce decree explicity states that the car is 100% hers and
she/the court releases you from all debts related to the car as of the
time of the divorce, the finance company should not be able to come back
on you unless there is some strange new law in TX I'm not familiar with.
This may be worth a call to the attorney who handled your divorce.
I believe you're incorrect here. A divorce decree does not unilaterally
cancel existing contracts. If his name is on the car loan note, then he's
still legally liable for the debt. At best, he could pay off the loan and
then sue his ex for his expenses, using the divorce decree as evidence that
the responsibility for the car was hers. The finance company doesn't care
about marital status.
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David W. wrote:
Paul Cassel <pcasselplustwo@comcast.net> wrote in
news:ftev2114qtclq3k6nbd89n73g4k9s8o8rq@4ax.com:
I believe you're incorrect here. A divorce decree does not unilaterally
cancel existing contracts. If his name is on the car loan note, then he's
still legally liable for the debt. At best, he could pay off the loan and
then sue his ex for his expenses, using the divorce decree as evidence that
the responsibility for the car was hers. The finance company doesn't care
about marital status.
That's been my experience, also. In this line of work, we get to hear
about a lot of problems, and this one of debt lingering in spite of a
divorce decree that assigned property to one irresponsible party is very
common.
And it makes sense. If divorce was a way to offload all debt onto one
party and leave the other with stellar credit, it would be even more
popular than it is. And it does appear that either many attorneys don't
inform clients about the persistence of debt following divorce, or a
great many clients aren't listening.
Among many web sites addressing this situation, see:
http://californiadivorce.info/dm.money.assetsliabilities.debtanddivorce.htm
under "Joint Debt" for a discussion of the extreme difficulty of really
assigning debt.
--
Gerald Clough
"Nothing has any value, unless you know you can give it up."
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