Nothing is Moving

[Bubba Seal]

Cuzz, this is just my point of view, but I wouldnt sell anything until youve got your parenting plan and marital dissolution agreement in place, and signed.

I think you would both be better to put money in a escrow account that you two cant access til the divorce is final. That might work.

BUt if you guys start selling things off and siphoning the money away, it will drag out the divorce longer in my opinion, if there is a steady stream of money for things sold, what is there to push the divorce along?

Just my 2 cents

[Cuzz]

Cuzz, this is just my point of view, but I wouldnt sell anything until youve got your parenting plan and marital dissolution agreement in place, and signed.

I think you would both be better to put money in a escrow account that you two cant access til the divorce is final. That might work.

BUt if you guys start selling things off and siphoning the money away, it will drag out the divorce longer in my opinion, if there is a steady stream of money for things sold, what is there to push the divorce along?

Just my 2 cents

NJ claims she has an agreement in place but wont be submitting it to us until after our first hearing or even later (our pre-trial is scheduled in March).. She claims they havent submitted anything yet because nothing is even documented in the courts yet, other than me filing.. NJ claims the things we are agreeing to sell are not in the agreement and I can understand why because I'm sure she wont want a farm tractor and a few trailers, lol.. And I dont want them either.. If I wait before I start selling these things that neither of us want, I may be stuck here for months while trying to sell them and wont be able to leave until they are sold..

NJ wants me out of here and I want out of here too so that is the driving force right now.. There is a court order that was submitted so that neither of us could withdraw or spend more than a certain amount at one time but its not a low amount so that alone is going to be a steady stream of money.. I was just hoping to have my own account now so I can start doing other things like helping my mother out of some recent medical bills..

We do have a parenting plan agreement in place but again that hasnt been documented by the courts yet.. I'm not sure what to expect at the pre-trial hearing but I'm guessing its just to start setting up other hearings, so nothing much wil probably even get done at this first hearing.. I cant believe its already taking 3 months just for our first hearing..

[Bubba Seal]

Is there something stopping you from setting up your own bank account, that was the first thing I did, and I stopped putting any money in the marital account.

I think you still need an agreement signed that says what is non-marital and what is marital. Say you sell the tractor and later she says its marital, its not really that she wants it, she may just want half the cash value.

Im just telling you from experience, the more money you guys have to spend now, the longer your divorce will take, thats kinda what happened to me, finally I just said no Im not selling anything else unless its contingent on the dissolution agreement being signed and notarized.

Are you comfortable with your temp parenting plan? Once again if its not signed and filed, I dont think it means anything.

Patience is your friend now, dont rush things to fast.

[Trevor]

1. How can she have an "agreement" in place when you don't know the first thing about it? That's totally stupid; they are mutually exclusive concepts. No, there is no agreement. There might be a proposal, though.

2. How are you coming along with the spreadsheet that lists all your assets and liabilities? You talked about it last week, so I guessed by now you had it all compiled, with a few scenarios built out based on who gets the house, right? You should have stuff listed (and valued) for her that are hers, for you that are yours, and a column for things that are co-owned, to be split...so that after all the calcs are done, the same Total amounts are in your column as in hers.

3. Agree that to sell anything before you have a done deal could be problematic, unless you both agree explicitly and there is a paper trail of the sale and destination of the proceeds. Initialed or signed at each step, as appropriate.

4. Don't leave the house until that parenting time agreement is set in stone with a judge's signature. Again, there is no agreement until the court establishes it.

5. Open your own account and have your pay deposited there from now on. Separate your finances (this is all in the List, have you read it?) immediately.

6. The pre-trial hearing, in FL anyway, is to determine what issues are still open for discussion at the hearing. So if you have a parenting plan where you both agree, then bring it and submit it and ask the court for a signature that day. That will take the issue off the table, for the time being anyway. Any other issues where you have agreement should be stipulated (and, I argue, signed at the pre-trial hearing) so you can focus only on the outstanding issues giong forward at the hearing.

[Cuzz]

1. How can she have an "agreement" in place when you don't know the first thing about it? That's totally stupid; they are mutually exclusive concepts. No, there is no agreement. There might be a proposal, though.
Your right, I meant to say proposal and not agreement
2. How are you coming along with the spreadsheet that lists all your assets and liabilities? You talked about it last week, so I guessed by now you had it all compiled, with a few scenarios built out based on who gets the house, right? You should have stuff listed (and valued) for her that are hers, for you that are yours, and a column for things that are co-owned, to be split...so that after all the calcs are done, the same Total amounts are in your column as in hers.
I have the spreadsheet done with all items listed but she wont even review it because of the proposal she has claims is at her L office.. I dont think she wants to give me a clue at this time and may have even been advised not to do so.. We really didnt own anything prior to marriage so I think everything is going to be considered a marital asset and split evenly..
3. Agree that to sell anything before you have a done deal could be problematic, unless you both agree explicitly and there is a paper trail of the sale and destination of the proceeds. Initialed or signed at each step, as appropriate.
We did agree to split the sale evenly. Again this stuff was all obtained after mariage so I believe its going to be split 50/50 anyways and we are saving all documents on the sale.. Keep in mind there are no court orders in place yet
4. Don't leave the house until that parenting time agreement is set in stone with a judge's signature. Again, there is no agreement until the court establishes it.
Yes, that is my goal.. I'm not leaving no matter what because I'm not giving up anything I dont have too, including my parenting rights and time..
5. Open your own account and have your pay deposited there from now on. Separate your finances (this is all in the List, have you read it?) immediately.
Thats a little more complicated because we share a home business and there are no seperate paychecks at all.. We have basically let the businesss account build up and then transfer money to our joint bank account when there is extra money on the business account that we know wont be needed for the business.. We usually do this once a year and after taxes and we have been doing it this way for years.. Everything we have done has always been jointly including buying the tractors and trailers I mentioned above... I have read the list but it doesnt realy cover my financial sanario.
6. The pre-trial hearing, in FL anyway, is to determine what issues are still open for discussion at the hearing. So if you have a parenting plan where you both agree, then bring it and submit it and ask the court for a signature that day. That will take the issue off the table, for the time being anyway. Any other issues where you have agreement should be stipulated (and, I argue, signed at the pre-trial hearing) so you can focus only on the outstanding issues giong forward at the hearing.

I cant get her to sit down and even talk about parenting time.. It basically boils down to our sons best interest and his activities. We both agreed at the mediated custody hearing that parenting time will be determined by his activites and the judge complimented us for putting our sons best interest first but nothing was done or agreed upon at that hearing about any times. The only thing that came out was 50/50 parenting time with a standard court parenting format such as every other holiday, every other weeknd, and 50/50 split summer vacations..

[Cuzz]

What about buying a new truck? My truck is currently having issues and needs to go in the shop and it has over 115k on it. However NJ said she has no problem if I want to trade it in and buy a new one.. She already said she wants to keep her 2 vehicles, which blue book at $35k and both have less than 20k on them. The truck I'm looking at is also $35k and I would have to put $18k ontop of my trade (we have penty of cash to do this).. I am going to need a reliable vehicle and figure now would be a good time since the value doesnt include the taxes, which means she would actually be paying 1/2 of the taxes if I bought it now.. If I have to wait until assests are split, I would then be paying the taxes myself instead.. My mother is not in great shape and I need to make trips to see her and dont trust my current truck..

[BartSimpson]

Rent a car to go see your Mom, and send me the left-over $17.5k you will have just sitting around after.

Please Stop Running! Adopt a pace you can maintain for a number of years. You seem so rushed to liquidate all this "stuff" that it is hard for me to understand why/how you have been so successful in aquiring all this "stuff". There is so much cash floating around in your world that my spidey-sense says the IRS might be interested. Real interested if Wifey doesn't get her way.

Do you have a financial professional, preferably a CPA, that can review all these assets and offer some direction for proper accounting and assure the tax implications are considered? This isn't a simple yard sale, my read is these are capital assets to your business at stake that improper handling could trigger significant forensic accounting costs.

[Fatheroffour]

and dont trust my current truck..

I've thought of this and when I really looked at how much money I was spending on automobiles, buying and trading, taking the hit on depreciation every few years, on top of all the insurance I was blown away.

The fear of getting stranded is a holdover of old farts like us that grew up with being stranded on the side of the road meant really being stranded. Having to walk or hope and rely on the generosity of a passerby. With cell phones today, you can break down call a tow and have a rental delivered to you within an hour in most metropolitan areas any day of the week without getting out of your car.

I have a drive the wheels off it policy and have been admittedly lucky but have not been 'stranded' in decades.

Keep a jack and a spare, your oil checked and your cell phone charged and save the tens of thousands of dollars you'll waste because you dont "trust" your vehicle.

Maybe not for you as you seem to be loaded but for others reading, just sayin'

[Cuzz]

Ok, I'll just take my truck in for now and have it fixed..
Trust me Bartsimpson, I have a really good CPA and everything is legit..

Based on our conversation today, it almost sounds like NJ wants the house, probably everything in it, her 2 vehicles and she is going to make me an offer on the business.. I personally don't want anything.. That basically means she's going to want almost everything but my truck, my personal belongings and some misc stuff that will need to be sold.. If we split the cash assets in 1/2, there is no way she will have enough to pay me 1/2 for everything she wants.. I was going to start making a plan should she go this route (since I don't want any of it anyways) but I still don't know for sure so I could just be wasting my time and money.. As some of you know, its not easy sharing the same marital home after you file (I filed for a reason) so yes I am very stressed out and frustrated, not only with what I have to deal with but also at the pace so far and just trying to at least get something rolling and that's why I'm trying to push some things now.. I have been living my daily life for 3 months now without even having a first court date yet and its just getting frustrating watching time stand still, especially after finding out today that she thinks it will be over in the next month or so and wont believe a word I say.. I thought she had something going with her L but found besides our mediated custody hearing that she hasnt heard from him since she paid her reatainer fee... My L has been the same way, I seen him once at the first mediated custody hearing too, which lasted about 2 minutes and we both havent heard from our L since..

BTW, NJ's main focus right now is seeing a counsler in hopes of "fixing" herself so I will stop this whole process and she says shes going to tell the judge that at our first pre-trial.. So its pretty obvious shes going to drag this out to keep me here as long as she can..

[Trevor]

Whoa, whoa, whoa.
1. What exactly are the terms of your "agreed upon" parenting time? If you agreed on something, you must exercise it fully (and then some) and if she interferes then you document it and take her back to court after several documented violations. If nothing is in place, then you have no agreement, and you have a chance to FIX it so you are not screwed.

2. You wrote "The only thing that came out was 50/50 parenting time with a standard court parenting format such as every other holiday, every other weeknd, and 50/50 split summer vacations." Let's be clear on something...what you wrote does NOT constitute a 50/50 parenting time split. Don;t let temp orders happen without a clear grant of 50% of overnights to YOU. You can make sure the kid gets to soccer practice, no?

3. Basing parenting time on a child's activities can be played to your disadvantage so I am curious about how THAT is worded. Before you know it, the kid's time will be all booked up and Daddy will be crowded out completely. Do not allow that to happen.