Regardless on whether or not he knows he is entitled to half the equity now, he will eventually find out. You might be able to con him into taking less than his legal due now but down the line he will find out what you did and my guess is that he won’t be very happy with you. If you never had to see the guy again, well… I’d say it would be unethical but would hold very few consequences for you however you have a child together and that changes things dramatically. You’re going to be in contact with this guy for a very long time through your daughter and it will IMO be well worth it to keep everything perfectly on the level and friendly so that at no point in the future does this money come between you, your ex and catch your daughter in the middle.
Give him 20,000 MINUS up front child support payments. So whatever the monthly payments come out to between now and whenever he would get to stop making them. Deduct that sum from the 20,000 and give him what’s left. That way the lasy bastard doesn’t have to worry about working to pay that bill every month.
You’re not shady. If a man (or woman) doesnt work hard for anything, he shouldn’t get anything. The money is yours.
Hey, two observations:
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I don’t know you or your husband’s situation, but from what you’ve said here, it sounds as if you’re about to do something dishonest and underhanded. Just for shits n’ giggles, I tried to imagine how I’d feel if the gender roles were reversed, and I came to the conclusion that I’d be equally nauseated. Again, I don’t know you two, so maybe there are other factors at play that I’m just not understanding.
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Let me be the first to predict in writing that this thread will either end up in the Pit, or with someone being Pitted.
Morally, since he didn’t pay anything into the house (except utilities), I think your $20K offer is fine. But (I’m not a lawyer and I don’t live in Florida) I think you should query your attorney intensely about whether there could be any ramifications for the way you and he/she are handling this. Can your ex sue the attorney for malpractice when he eventually realizes that he could have gotten half the equity? Do you and your soon-to-be ex have to appear in court before a judge? What if the judge asks your ex whether he fully understands that he’s waiving his right to half the equity?
It just seems to me that this is going to come back and bite you unless you are up front with your ex about everything. Is there another attorney you could get to handle your end of it?
If I’m reading this correctly, the OP is wrestling with the moral question whether it’s OK to cheat somebody you don’t particularly like and who will probably not find out.
There’s no question in my mind - no, it’s not right.
This guy is a person who is the parent of a child you presumably love very much. A child that you would like have grow up with some ethical values herself and not one who has to hear about how Mommy shafted Daddy just because Mommy could.
Cheating is wrong, even if you can get away with it.
Plus, as the father of your child - he is unlikely to slip totally out of your life after the divorce. That $20,000 might look very, very expensive down the road if this blows up in your face and it costs you your daughter’s respect.
If he’s entitled to half the house, then he’s entitled to half the house. I seriously doubt that a man would get any support for trying to screw his wife out of what was rightfully hers in a divorce. By the standards of the OP, no housewife would ever be entitled to anything.
The chances are he’s going to figure out what he’s entitled to anyway. Any lawyer would tell him so.
Really? No housewife is ever entitled to anything?
I’d tell him.
– IG
If your lawyer is, in fact, representing your husband, then she is in serious breach of her ethical responsibilities and should be reported to the state bar association for disciplinary action.
I agree with Otto’s assessment of your behavior but would go a step further and call it fraudulent, rather than merely shady–you are actively attempting to deprive your husband of property that is rightfully his according to Florida law. I hope he wises up.
Not if she contributes nothing. Granted, a housewife who busts her ass and is actually doing the “job” of homemaker, then she deserves her cut. Afterall, her effort has allowed the husband to keep his attention focused on his business, job, etc.
The OP made no mention of the husband staying at home and taking care of the house and the kids and the shopping and the laundry and the cleaning. . .
If there was only 50/50 thing where they both put the same equal amount of effort into the chores and the housework, then he is not entitled any more than the generous 20K. IMO of course.
Color me confused.
Same guy? Different guy? Just an overwhelming obsession with the concept of alimony?
At the very least, you should each have your own lawyer. Divorce seldom brings out people’s best impulses, but ideally everyone involved should be adult enough to be fair.
I think you need to re-read the OP. She set up this relationship with the full understanding that she was the financial powerhouse in this marriage, and would likely remain so, and the pre-nup was specifically crafted to protect her pre-marital assets. What we have now is a somewhat clueless soon to be ex, and father of their child, who (currently) has no idea of what he’s entitled to under law.
Whether he’s a decent but slackerish guy, or a just a stud boy/sperm donor layabout the OP thought was worth a try, is beside the point. Jamming him out of the house equity has significant downstream risks.
The law may very well beg to differ. Your personal sense of morals or ethics or whatever may say one thing as to whether the husband “should” get anything but the law says he “must” get it and attempts to keep him from getting it are pretty shitty and are especially shitty if the lawyer handling it is acting unethically. It has nothing to do with whether the husband “should” be “given” something. It has everything to do with the fact that it already belongs to him and keeping property that belongs to someone else is theft.
I love all these opinions that the partner who doesn’t have the higher paying job isn’t entitled to anything when the law clearly states that he IS IN FACT ENTITLED TO HALF of the equity of that property according to the OP. Whether it’s “fair” or not in your opinion is debatable, but the law says it’s his.
The OP can choose to cheat her future ex-husband out of it if she wishes, but that’s her karma to carry or his right to waive if he so chooses.
First, I think he’s entitled to 1/2 the equity; not the house, if that’s the law. You could pay him in installments rather than take out a loan. That’s what my husband did with his exes and it worked out fine. They got his tax return every year.
Next, is there a reason you want to short him his due? Was he reprehensible in his behavior to you or the kid?
Third, if he contributed in ways other than monetary, that counts for something. Do the right thing.
But it’s not his choice, not his informed choice. Yes, if he’s fully informed of his legal rights by his non-conflicted advocate and after having been so advised chooses to accept less than what he’s legally entitled to, then more power to him for making that decision for whatever reason. That’s not even close to what’s being described here. Here, his advocate is mired in an inescapable conflict of interest. His advocate knows that he’s entitled to more than what’s being offered and is actively engaged in a conspiracy with the other spouse to conceal that information. The lawyer should be disbarred. If the wife isn’t subject to criminal sanctions for engaging in the conspiracy and fraud then I hope the judge finds out about it and tosses her ass in jail for civil contempt for a good long stretch, in a cell right next to the lawyer.
DianaG -and now I’m confused, too. The two scenarios aren’t even similiar-except they involve the same OP. What the heck is going on here?
How many husbands and prospective husbands do you have, Foxy?
Someone brought up the daughter-no matter what you think of him, no matter how much “ambition” he may or may not have, he is still this child’s father. He has rights as such. As a husband, he also has rights-if he is entitled to half the equity, so be it. He is entitled to see her, to have her visit or stay or even live with him, as long as he is deemed fit to do so.
Why am I hoping that soon to be ex-husband gets custody of said daughter? Maybe because I’d rather be a naive slacker than a conscienceless money hound. YMMV.
Actually I think it’s my total lack of ethics or morals that is guiding my opinion on this one.
And sure the law says he is entitled, but I think it’s like certain rebates and discounts: “If you dont ask for it, you dont get it.”
For whatever reason, I veiw this as an entirely different scenario than if the OP said “My husband wants half the equity and will take me to court for it. Should I fight, or just give it to him”. But I dunno, I’m kinda twisted I guess. I’m not really disagreeing with you, you’re definitely right that he should legally and ethically get it. But if I were the OP, I’d say “fuck 'em”.
So, your soon-to-be-ex-husband is entitled to half the equity in your home. He is unaware of this fact. You and your attorney (who he apparently from the OP mistakenly thinks is his attorney as well - even though that is not actually possible in this situation under the RPC from what I can tell in the OP) are conspiring to keep him in ignorance. You are paying him a cash sum - presumably in the hopes that he won’t ever realize that he is entitled to a much larger sum (I assume the equity in your home is quite a lot more than $20K or you wouldn’t be making this offer).
You’re committing fraud. Your attorney is knowingly assisting you in this process, and if the Florida bar association learns of it, deserves *at minimum * a stiff sanction, if not disbarrment.
After reading that other thread it appears that something really fishy is going on here. Four months ago, the OP claimed that she was going to break off an engagement to another man and that she had two kids. Now she’s saying she’s already been married for eight years and only mentions one kid. :dubious:
I guess it’s possible that in the thrad from May, she just didn’t bother to mention that she was already married and maybe she only has one kid with this guy and another from somewhere else. Even so, the stories are strikingly dissimilar and really only share a common theme of griping about how assets are distributed after a divorce.