Getting money back from ex when it's in decree?
 

Here is the deal, when I was married, my ex used me to cosign for a loan for a car (big mistake, never do this) Anyway, when we divorced, the decree said she would take the car and all remaining debt. This did not get me off the hook with the bank, however my lawyer said I could sue her for contempt of court if I had to pay. So when she was 75 days late, I shelled out some money to catch it up, not wanting to hurt my credit score. I kept all documentation. Like $1000. She said she would pay me back when she got her taxes. So I waited. She never did, then I deployed on short notice (I am in Tanzania now)
I have 2 questions I guess.
Is there a statute of limitation for suing her? Can I still sue her for the money like 2 years from now?
How do I sue someone for contempt of court by myself? I won't get any money back if I go through a lawyer.

She is a worthless human being. She never has any money or a job, so I am not to sure if she has any money to give me (drug problem). She also has 2 kids (not mine), so not to sure if I want to garnish her wages. Should I go after her or just write it off?

Dude... Unlucky.
 

Is there no way that you can take some sort of affadavit to the bank, some sort of documentation from the divorce stating that the debt is now completely hers as you are no longer in possession of the vehicle?

Otherwise, if you really don't care for her, maybe there's a way to get the bank to reposess it...

I'm not sure - not much of a legal expert myself...

Good luck.

yeah you can still sue her.

as far the repossession goes, I don't think it's a liable option unless your name is nowhere near the paperwork on the title.

get a lawyer. there's no point in trying to go to court by yourself unless you go to the people's court or something. half the time the lawyer can settle it out of court anyway.

Nope.

The bank doesn't care what the court says. His name is on the note and, in their eyes, responsible for repayment. It ain't fair, but so much in life isn't.

Waaaay back when...when I divorced the first Mrs. O'Rights, she had enough bad checks, written on our joint account, to fall just $15 short of a felony. She was ordered, by the court, in our divorce papers, to repay her bad checks. She never did. After 2 years of being unable to open a checking account, in my own name, I finally paid them off. It had gotten to the point where it just wasn't worth the principle of it anymore. I had to get on with my own life, and having the ability to open a checking account was part of that.

Just don't get the same lawyer you used the first time that screwed you over like this!!

I'd go after the bank if they did that. Banks are not above the law. A court order is a court order.

True.
But...the court did not order the bank to allow me to open a checking account. The court only ordered that my ex pay the debt. The bank, since it was joint account, was well within their rights to deny me an account until the past debt was paid in full. They just want their money. They do not care one iota the source.

Sometimes you just do what you have to do, in order to move on.

It's not his lawyer's fault. This is how it works. His name's on the loan, and it doesn't matter what the legal system says, the BANKING system says he's responsible. Actually, he promised to be responsible for the debt when he cosigned. It wasn't "I'll be responsible for the debt as long as I'm married to my fellow cosigner".

The only way out of it is to refinance the car under just her name, which you obviously can't do without her--and given her payment history, it's likely not possible to get a loan just under her name.

another case of being happy or being right.... be dilgent about the payments being made, and if they aren't cover the marker.

I've actually seen lawyers make this happen in the beginning, which is the only reason I brought it up. When going through a divorse possesions change hands and there are things that can be done at that time. Other lawyers will say what his did so they can then earn more fees later fixing the problem. Everything is negotiable.

If a monkey has its feet on two sets of shoulders it will eventually pick up one foot. This monkey left his foot on the dude's shoulders!

Lawyer /= Banker. Different whole thing. A lawyer could argue to the court to have certain actions taken by either party regarding the car loan, but could never magically re-cast a car loan to have one fewer cosigner on it. Never in a million years. That takes refinancing. It's set up that way to make loans hard to get out of, which, if you're a bank, is exactly what you want.

Unless the creditor was offered the opportunity to represent their interests in your divorce, they are not bound by that court order. The order only applies to the petitioner and the respondent, not the creditor. This means that while you may hold your ex responsible for the payment of the loan, the bank can still hold you responsible. You can pay off the loan, and then go after your ex for the money.

Eh, unless its a serious amount of money then I'd just let it go and write it off as a lesson learnt.
The hard way.

How would I check my credit score? Also, how could I go about checking her credit score? I have all her info.

Dude...I'm telling you, I have seen - it - happen. What's the big deal? In case you don't know, courts trump banks. They trump everything. Look at the first Bush election. And another thing, banks are always willing to negotiate if they have the right motivation.

But to help you feel better, in the case I referenced, if I recall correctly, the lawyer got the judge to force the couple to liquidate assets, including vehicles in joint ownership, thus eliminating the loans. If the OP had to cover a shortfall in the liquidated price from the loan balance it would have been much better to use his own cash or obtain an unsecured loan that was only in his name.

There is no way I would ever end a relationship with a spouse, business partner or otherwise and still have a joint asset I have any responsibility for still in my name. I have no control over what the other person does. If they were sued over an accident I would have liability. If they didn't pay their loan payment I would have responsibilitiy. If they didn't pay their insurance, taxes or licensing fees - yep, I would have liability. His lawyer knew that. It is just simply not a smart move, especially from a liability standpoint.

So, I won't debate you on what courts can and cannot order. But I will not let the joint ownership issue dangle.

Well, sure, I mean, that's completely different. And the bank had nothing to do with it; that's an action the divorcing parties could choose to take anyway to get the assets out of joint ownership, and in that case the court ordered them to. In my (granted, second-hand) experience of divorces, that's pretty rare. There's usually some sort of joint asset hanging out. StellaLuna is being impacted by her ex's late car payments even as we speak. I've never seen the court step in to force dissolution of joint assets--that's usually left to the parties to sort out, though I can see that it might happen, particularly in very acrimonious cases where leaving anything jointly owned is a very bad idea. Maybe it has to do with how North Carolina handles these things, I don't know.

It's called a good lawyer! Which was actually the point of my original comment.