So, that really was quite epic and I’m tempted to bake the man a cake; however, (and I may have missed it), did the poor wife in this situation actually wind up with any spousal or child support as a result of this? The anti-Freemen stuff took me about 45 minutes to read and I may have skimmed over the part where the poor woman is finally rid of this schmuck!
Yes, she has been receiving child support, but the quantum needs to be updated. The judge gave the fellow some time to cough up his financial information (upon which the change in support will be based), and in the mean time, wrote his reasons to stop the Freemen from derailing the process. The judge also put the proceedings into case management, meaning that the parties will have to go to that same judge to deal with their issues, rather than running to various judges. Case management usually speeds things up, and more importantly, it provides firm direction that will push the parties to either resolve the matter or get it to trial, rather than fart about.
The odds are that if he does not produce his financial informaton, he will be found in countempt and fined (or jailed if he repeats his contempt), and an order will be made permitting the wife to get his financial information directly from third parties. If the information is straightforward, then the wife would make a motion for an interim (temporary) child support change to increase the amount until the trial makes a final decision. If the informaton is not straight forward, the wife would examine the husband out of court but under oath to dig out more information. Needless to say, that would likely end up with her then having to go back to the judge due to him buggering up the examination. With folks like him, often the best approach is to get an order for security for costs (have him make a deposit with the court), then bring motions when he is not cooperative and ask for costs to be paid after each motion. If he keeps misbehaving, it will hurt his pocket book while at the same time both covering her lawyer’s bill and providing good proof that his case should be tossed out for being frivolous and vexatious.
Wait, explain this to me. I thought a mortgage was not just a promise to pay (that would be a loan agreement or promissory note or whatever), but also an agreement that the lender can take ownership of the house if the borrower fails to make payments (the lender puts a ‘dead hand’ on the property).
So how can Jane legally agree to (potentially) let the lender take ownership if she doesn’t own the house to begin with?
