What is the name of your state? CA
So right now my aunt is in quite a difficult situation. Her husband took out a 100k loan a few years ago claiming that it would be spent to fund his children's college tuitions, but now it's all gone and he can't even pay for his son's community college classes. He's also in huge financial trouble right now... One of his cars was recently towed away at night because he had failed to make the payments for the past 4 months, and now he can't even pay his $20 phone bill. My aunt has a feeling that he gambled it all away, but she has no proof of this. So is there a legal way she can find out how he spent the money? Like can she hire some kind of accounting investigator to see where it all went?
Sure, throw away more money just to prove to yourself that the money you no longer have and which you'll never get back, was wasted on some form of addiction. If that sounds like a smart thing to do, then tell her to hit the yellow pages and get out her check book. Oh wait, she doesn't have a phone to make the call on until she comes up with a spare twenty. Maybe she should hold off on making that call for a while!
What I'm getting at is this. What does she hope to prove by hiring an investigator? If the money is the only issue, then I wouldn't waste more just to say, "I knew it!" It's gone, there is nothing that can be done to get it back now.
She needs to deal with the current situation she's in. The situation caused by the loss of the money. Once she can stop the repossessions, foreclosures, keep the lights on for a minute and have something to eat in the house, then she can work on the reason they got into this situation in the first place.
She certainly has to get her own bank account that she can funnel any and all funds that may be coming into the household into, where her husband can not get a hold of any of it. She may need to file bankruptcy or get whatever legal protection of her assets that she can, while they are still her assets.
As far as what has been going on with her husband, I would have to believe that she has had some sort of clue that things weren't right. If he refuses to admit that he threw away the family fortune gambling, then maybe she should consider throwing him away. But if she plans on staying in the marriage and working up from here, she needs to take charge now.
Gambling away thousands, even hundreds of thousands of dollars isn't as hard, or as uncommon as many people think. People probably lose money faster through gambling, than alcohol and drugs can take combined.
I personally know two separate individuals, who have thrown hundreds of thousands of dollars of their hard earned money away at Indian casinos over the last five to ten years and they each continue to do so to this day.
One of them is the founding partner in a very successful printing business. I saw his income tax returns from 2006. He brought home nearly two hundred and fifty thousand dollars last year, yet he's forever borrowing money from me and every other friend he has just to put gas in his car to get to work, it's absolutely crazy.
The other person is a member of the San Manuel band of Indians and even though she's only a half blooded tribe member, she receives a check each month for a little over twenty six thousand dollars! Last month her husband was asking me if I could lend him bolt cutters so he could cut the lock off of his water meter. Three months ago they lost a home that was willed to them with no mortgage owed on it. It is just unbelievable until you see it in person. These people all have an addiction that is as bad as drugs, maybe worse. You can only do so many drugs, but there is no limit on how much you can give to the casinos.
They get depressed, embarrassed and then go out and try to win it all back again. The only way to get a hold of the situation, is if these people did not have access to their money.
Unfortunately there is no law that prevents people from spending all their money, losing their cars, their homes and taking their families down with them. This is something left up to the individual. It's called self control, discipline, getting a grip. It is either learned or it is not. The law can not force someone to handle their money properly.
Your aunt needs to take control of the finances immediately and not trust him with any of their money. She has to make sure he has no access to it and she has to do it yesterday. Paying someone to investigate where the money went is only throwing more money away.
The only other choice she has is to file for divorce and start all over again. Sorry, but there's not much that can be done at this point, other than start from square one and build from there.
