So, my wife and I split last year. Earlier this year I filled out the divorce paperwork at her request and supposedly she had an attorney file it and all that. It was amicable, no disputed property or kids, etc.
Thing is, I never heard from her, never received any confirming paperwork. I have no idea if the divorce is final. She would have filed it in TN, I live in KY. I don’t have any way to get in touch with her since she got a new phone and didn’t give me the number.
We also had a car which I took over the payments on, we’re both listed as cosigners (‘and’). The divorce agreement stated that she was relinquishing any right to it and it’s not in dispute at all, but I want to refinance and/or trade it in and don’t have her to cooperate with anything. I have no idea how to proceed.
Second … take anything posted on the internet with about five pounds of salt … yeesh …
Keeping both those points firmly in mind … I would venture to say you are still married to that person … the divorce may have been filed but you would have been officially notified of the actual court date and you (perhaps) had to be in attendance … you will need her signature in order to release the title for the car, or anything else you two own jointly …
Even simple divorces are fairly complicated … so unless you go through the procedure on a regular basis and have gained a bunch of experience, you gotta gotta have a lawyer involved representing you … because very bad things can happen if the paperwork gets screwed up …
Please assume this “divorce agreement” is just recycling unless it has a judge’s signature on it …
Lawyer … now … do not pass go, do not collect $200 …
It’s probably not obvious from the forum descriptions, but we ask that questions involving legal matters to be posted in our In My Humble Opinion forum, as these questions often require legal opinions. As the forum name implies, any responses you get are just the opinions of some online folks, and should not be considered to be the equivalent of professional legal advice. As always, it’s best to consult with a real life legal professional.
Did you have to mail/send the divorce papers somewhere, like a lawyers office, or did she bring them to you in person? If you had to send them somewhere, I’d start there.
Please don’t offer legal advice unless you are a, you know, lawyer.
To the OP:
If you know what county the divorce was filed in, you can probably check online to see what the status of the case is. Here, for instance, is the portal for Montgomery County, which is the county of Clarksville, TN.
If you know what attorney your ex(?)-wife used, you can request from that attorney a copy of any filed documents (they are supposed to be served on you by mail), as well as a copy of any final divorce decree. Try calling, first, but be persistent if you seem to be getting the brush off.
If you know none of the above, and are unable to discover any information easily, and cannot contact your putative ex-wife, you may have to try engaging the services of someone who can track down relevant court records for you. That doesn’t have to be an attorney; there are several online services that exist for the purpose of doing precisely this sort of thing. You can consider having such a service locate your ex-wife for you, too, so that, if things are not as they should be, you know where to go to get things corrected.
Finally, as to getting an attorney: I would only do that if you are at the point where you need legal advice, and/or legal action. Which may happen, should you find out that the ex-wife is not filing the paperwork for some reason, or that paperwork has not been acted upon, etc. But having an attorney do for you some of the basic things I outlined above is costly, and probably not necessary. As for the car, yes, an attorney can help you there, but again, at some expense; I’d try locating the wife/court records first.
HAH … maybe you’d be surprised the amount of top quality legal advice about divorce that can be found on construction crews … we’re talking dozens of case files … hundreds of child support cases … concrete finishers especially …
You’d be less surprised at the amount of really awful legal advice that can be found in such forums, though. And there’s no reason why the OP would need to be present for an uncontested divorce.
I would be a bit concerned about this on her end. As an attorney (though not a family law practitioner) I would never have allowed a client to relinquish interest in marital property without relinquishing the corresponding loan obligations - and the lienholder (bank, dealer finance, whoever) is not going to take someone’s name off an auto loan just because you asked nicely. So unless you left out a step, I suspect her attorney has not filed the paperwork you signed just yet.
Assuming it was filed and the divorce decree has been entered, it should be public record and in my state you would be able to see it online on the county clerk’s website (as DsYoung suggests).
You shouldn’t be surprised at how many documents/statements/disclosures have to be signed by the non-combatant in front of a notary to be able to ram-rod a divorce through ex parti …
The Red Flag in the OP is the poster doesn’t have an official Divorce Decree™ in hand … the one signed by a judge … perhaps this is the wisdom of the construction site about just how God awful bad things can get if those last few steps in a divorce never get done … the OP losing the car might seem trivial if he’s in jail on bigamy charges … just saying …
ETA: Please excuse my hostel tone … I’m smack in the middle of the exact same situation right now … c’mon people, divorce is serious business … get a lawyer for love of God …
In addition to what everyone else said, a lienholder will not simply let one spouse off the hook when you get divorced, no matter what agreement you worked out.
Example: Say in 2015, John and Susie buy a new car from Ford. They also finance the car through Ford for a five year note. As far as Ford’s concerned, they have a purchase money security interest in which they can go after either John or Susie or both to collect their money if there is a default.
Now, suppose that John and Susie get divorced in 2017 and the decree states that John gets the car and agrees to hold Susie harmless for any debt owed on the car. That is all fine and dandy, and perfectly legitimate in a divorce decree. However, that is an agreement/order from the court ONLY as it pertains to John and Susie.
Later John loses his job and stops making payments. Susie gets a letter from Ford stating that she is behind on the payments and to pay up or else. She laughs and tells Ford to get lost because her divorce decree says John is responsible. Ford Motor Company does not give two shits about the divorce decree. They have a contractual right to enforce payment from John and/or Susie if the payments are not forthcoming. Susie’s credit can take a hit or she can be sued for the arrearages.
This scenario is very common and I go to great lengths to explain to my family law clients how this works.
Wow. I’m completely new to The Straight Dope. I posted the question here because via Google, I saw an older question posted here that was similar but not similar enough.
I have to say, I didn’t expect so many people to be pissed off at me for being ignorant of things I am clearly ignorant of. Maybe that’s commonplace here, but it caught me by surprise. I appreciate all of the helpful advice.
I don’t think either of us have the belief they’d let her off the hook if we had an agreement, it’s more that she trusts me to make the payments. Likewise, I trust her to not suddenly want to try to challenge me for ownership of the car after the car’s paid off. I realize some will say we’re both idiots for extending any semblance of trust to one another, but the reality is, we have. I didn’t go into all the details, but suffice to say the car is small potatoes compared to other debts we share that I have voluntarily taken on. I know I’m not going to screw her over on those (I’m a better person than that) and she has elected to trust me on that.
I don’t plan on getting married again any time soon, if ever. I’m not even seeing anyone. Meanwhile, last I spoke to her, she was seeing someone and -she- was pushing for the divorce so she had the option of marrying him.
Likewise, due to the financial obligations we have and the fact she’s trusting me to deal with them, she also has the greater concern about whether the divorce gets finalized or not. I’m just wanting to get it over with and make the complete break from her. Repercussions to myself are a minimal concern, especially compared to her end of things.
Lastly, she supposedly had an attorney to handle all this and I’ve already signed and had notarized the book of paperwork he prepared. The issue is that I have not heard anything sense sending it back.
Believe me when I say no one here is pissed off at you. The moderator’s action was just keeping our library of info sorta organized according to our admittedly quirky ideas of organization. You definitely should not take that as any sort of criticism.
As to the rest of us …
Here you’ll get expert but free advice mixed in with sometimes questionable advice from amateurs trained only by the school of hard knocks. Sometimes we like to bicker a bit amongst ourselves since all the characters who’ve responded so far know each other’s online personas real well even though none of us have ever met in real life. None of that is aimed at you either.
If you hang around you’ll also find that we love nitpicking. But mostly in friendly way, not a point-scoring one.
