My husband and I have been living apart since the end of January. I’ll keep this short and unemotional because I am seeking a factual answer. Without my prior knowledge or approval, my husband closed out our joint accounts (leaving me with the 230 bucks in my Xmas club account) and moved all of “our” money to a location unknown by me. What now? Lawyer up, I assume? Is this even legal? How is a spouse allowed by the bank to do this without so much as the other’s signature or approval? Are all banks like this? Christ, if he died (God forbid!) I would be absolutely, without question, SCREWED!
Sorry to hear about your situation. The sad fact is that the bank did exactly what they were supposed to do. They didn’t require your husband’s permission whenever you wrote a check or used your debit card. A standard joint account means either person can access all the money or close the account. At this point, I suspect you do have to get a lawyer for a remedy.
BTW, if he died, you’d probably be fine. You could go through his records, find out where the money is, and since you’re still married, it pretty much goes to you.
You’re screwed. Get a lawyer. Take care of any other joint accounts now. This includes utilities. You don’t want him switching the electric he didn’t pay in the last few months over to you only. Once again take care of any other joint accounts now.
We only had the two joint accounts. Utilities, phone, cable, etc. are all under his name only. I’m covered by his company health insurance, and, as I understand it, he would not be able to remove me from the policy without proof that I was covered elsewhere.
This is generally true, although a) companies vary in terms of whether they actually require proof, or just his statement. If he were to lie just to mess with you, it would probably eventually get resolved to restore your coverage and result in him getting in trouble for committing insurance fraud with his employer. Ugly, but not impossible and b) this is typically not true during the annual open enrollment period. At that time, employees can usually add or drop any family member or their own coverage with no reason.
So if this is getting ugly and into lawyer territory, make sure to address health insurance as part of whatever terms are negotiated. Once you do get divorced, you would typically be entitled to 3 years’ COBRA.
If you were to contact the police, they will tell you that this is a civil matter.
Meaning, yes, you need a lawyer.
Damn. That’s cold. My advice lawyer up… yesterday. Without knowing your location it is imposible to make any other specific advice. But in my experience what he did was likely fully legal.
I can say in my own divorce one of the first orders of business was to get an interim agreement. This provided the basic operating rules during the proceedings part of the divorce. In my case they specificaly provided for who paid bills and what was to happen to joint accounts among other things.
My concern is if the utilites are in his name, he can call and get them turned off. If you are in any way reliant on those utilities, something to keep that from happening is a good idea.
Thanks, everyone. Keep 'em coming… I’m also looking into some free/low cost legal aid programs in case anyone has any advice/experience to relate.
Lawyer up now. My wife and I move money back and forth into different accounts all the time on the bank’s website. If we wanted to, either of us could move all the money into our private checking accounts with the same bank and the other person would not have access.
I’m living in St. Louis, but the marriage and pending divorce would be in Illinois.
I’m in a sweet space downtown over which he has ZERO control!
If it’s not too impertinent, were you at any time having a paycheck direct-deposited into any of the accounts? It occurs to me that this might be useful information for a lawyer to receive from you.
It’s not clear, but you do have a separate individual account now, right?
Well I still have no specific advice, as I have never been divorced in either Illinois or St. Louis… But I am glad to hear you have some independence.
Ideally in a situation like this I like to see a couple agree an an equitable division. The more you can do yourself the less you have to pay lawyers to do for you. In my case once the lawyers got involved about 20% of our combined total net worth got sucked up by them.
But given the actions he appears to be taking, I’m afraid you may have a hell of a fight on your hands. If you can start documenting everything now. If he’s closing accounts he may start trying to hide property next. And that trail will be easier to follow if you start documenting now. That includes the joint accounts. Try and get final statements from the bank. You should be able to get a fair cut from him in the final agreement/decree. But only if you can demonstrate what was there before he pillaged the accounts.
Good luck.
Have you talked to your husband yet about a solution?
His paychecks were always direct deposit; mine never were.
I printed out the last bank statement the day before the account was closed, luckily!
I will have a new, separate account as of tomorrow.
He is not really communicating with me at all right now. Won’t respond to direct questions either by phone or by e-mail. I’ve tried to do a lot of e-mailing, so as to have “evidence” of what was going on.
You should also keep a detailed daily journal of everything that transpires, with him, with the bank, with all of your joint affairs. Don’t try to do it from memory, your attorney will thank you.
NAL, but my best guess is that you are SOL for the moment, but if he tries to get a divorce, you will have some leverage since it would be cheaper for him to give you whatever part of the account belongs to you than to have a contested divorce. If his pay was deposted and yours wasn’t, it may be harder to show that any of it is yours.
Be sure he isn’t owing the IRS taxes and because your married you get hounded. This is one of the dirty tricks I’ve seen happen more than once.
Out of curiousity, what % of the money do you feel is “yours” (I don’t need the actual amount)? And how did you calculate it?
Hardly evidence, he can simply say he never got them, or he has a new e-mail account.
You really need a lawyer asap.