Forged Divorce Papers

[gwmad]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? New York. I thought my first wife and I were divorced several years ago. I recently was in contact with her, and asked why I was never informed of the divorce, and she told me that her then boyfriend was supposed to serve me with the papers, and they filed papers that were supposed to be signed by me with the court. Obviously he forged my signature to all the papers. I was never served. Do I have any legal recourse ?? Am I still legally married to her ???What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)?

 

[LdiJ]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? New York. I thought my first wife and I were divorced several years ago. I recently was in contact with her, and asked why I was never informed of the divorce, and she told me that her then boyfriend was supposed to serve me with the papers, and they filed papers that were supposed to be signed by me with the court. Obviously he forged my signature to all the papers. I was never served. Do I have any legal recourse ?? Am I still legally married to her ???What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)?

The first thing I would recommend doing is contacting the courthouse that issued the divorce and get a copy of the entire file. Then I would take that file to a local attorney and have them review all the paperwork, and advise you from there.

 

[Ronin]

Any legal recourse you may have would depend on what harm or damage was done to you as a result of the alleged forgery. You will have to consider how much time, effort, and $$ you are willing to spend on this. And ultimately, what you hope to accomplish with this.

This happened several years ago, you acknowledge you believed you were divorced all this time, and you only recently contacted your ex for details on the divorce.

If this was an otherwise simple uncontested divorce, and the divorce is now final, I would probably leave well enough alone. It's over and done with. The divorce is legally valid until you are able to successfully reverse the decree based upon fraud.

Challenging this as a matter of principle won't be cheap. One could easily drop several thousand dollars in legal fees for such an effort, with dubious results, only to end up turning right around and restarting the divorce.