Majorly confused about divorce proceedings

[boottube]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Santa Barbara

Hi,
I am posting this in behalf of my brother-in-law who is about to get divorced. The rest of the family is a very upset and I am seeking some advice for them.

My brother in law got married 5 months ago. The marriage required the wife to move from one county to another. Both the counties are in California. The wife took a few months to find a job. She makes more money than the husband.

Things started going sour between the couple within a few weeks and they were trying to work it out with a marriage counsellor. It reached a point that the wifes parents arrived without notice yesterday. They cleaned out and closed all joint bank accounts and a joint lock box with jewellery. They then took everything from the apartment that they had bought and went away. The husband was in the apartment and he called the cops and took photos as proof that they were taking the things away. Finally, they took the wife's name out of the lease and left.

Since then we have received phone calls from them that we have not picked up as everyone is upset. The messages left say that they want to discuss the divorce and decide on the division of assets.

We are trying to find a good divorce lawyer and get an appointment with him.

I have a bad feeling about the things that were taken from the locker. Some of them were expensive family heirloom that were gifted to the wife from husbands family on marriage.

- Is there any hope in hell that we will see any of the money taken from the joint account and jewellery taken from bank lockbox.
- Can the wife's family use these assetts to demand any terms of the divorce.
- What about expenditure on travel done by the husband like honeymoon and some more travel trips.
- In case this goes to court to become a long winded affair, then the wife will have to travel 600 miles to make it. I am assuming that they want a quick divorce and do not want to drag it. Can we use this to any of our advantage when discussing division of assetts.

As you can guess we are clueless about the whole thing. Nobody saw this coming and now we dont know how to react. Is there any silver lining in this for us. Looks like they had all their bases covered while we are running around trying to get an appointment with a half decent lawyer.

Any comments/help from anyone will be appreciated.

 

[LdiJ]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Santa Barbara

Hi,
I am posting this in behalf of my brother-in-law who is about to get divorced. The rest of the family is a very upset and I am seeking some advice for them.

My brother in law got married 5 months ago. The marriage required the wife to move from one county to another. Both the counties are in California. The wife took a few months to find a job. She makes more money than the husband.

Things started going sour between the couple within a few weeks and they were trying to work it out with a marriage counsellor. It reached a point that the wifes parents arrived without notice yesterday. They cleaned out and closed all joint bank accounts and a joint lock box with jewellery. They then took everything from the apartment that they had bought and went away. The husband was in the apartment and he called the cops and took photos as proof that they were taking the things away. Finally, they took the wife's name out of the lease and left.

Since then we have received phone calls from them that we have not picked up as everyone is upset. The messages left say that they want to discuss the divorce and decide on the division of assets.

We are trying to find a good divorce lawyer and get an appointment with him.

I have a bad feeling about the things that were taken from the locker. Some of them were expensive family heirloom that were gifted to the wife from husbands family on marriage.

- Is there any hope in hell that we will see any of the money taken from the joint account and jewellery taken from bank lockbox.
- Can the wife's family use these assetts to demand any terms of the divorce.
- What about expenditure on travel done by the husband like honeymoon and some more travel trips.
- In case this goes to court to become a long winded affair, then the wife will have to travel 600 miles to make it. I am assuming that they want a quick divorce and do not want to drag it. Can we use this to any of our advantage when discussing division of assetts.

As you can guess we are clueless about the whole thing. Nobody saw this coming and now we dont know how to react. Is there any silver lining in this for us. Looks like they had all their bases covered while we are running around trying to get an appointment with a half decent lawyer.

Any comments/help from anyone will be appreciated.

The bottom line is that your brother definitely needs a good attorney. The heirloom jewelry ought to be able to be recovered.

 

[mistoffolees]

The heirloom jewelry ought to be able to be recovered.

Based on what?

The jewelry was a gift to the wife from the husband's family. By what right would they take it back?

Similarly, there's no way for either party to demand part of the honeymoon cost or other travel costs back.

As for the money, it is likely to be split, however, given the short duration of the marriage, there's a good chance that some or all of the money in the joint account belonged to one of the parties before the marriage. While putting it into a joint account would typically make it marital, it may be possible to trace it given the short time elapsed.

 

[LdiJ]

Based on what?

The jewelry was a gift to the wife from the husband's family. By what right would they take it back?

Similarly, there's no way for either party to demand part of the honeymoon cost or other travel costs back.

As for the money, it is likely to be split, however, given the short duration of the marriage, there's a good chance that some or all of the money in the joint account belonged to one of the parties before the marriage. While putting it into a joint account would typically make it marital, it may be possible to trace it given the short time elapsed.

I have seen cases where the courts considered a family heirloom to be a conditional gift. Rather than an outright gift, it was considered to be "on loan" to be passed down to the next generation.

Notice that I did not address honeymoon or wedding costs.

Things are up in air about the money, since we don't know any details of where it came from and when.

 

[Proserpina]

I have seen cases where the courts considered a family heirloom to be a conditional gift. Rather than an outright gift, it was considered to be "on loan" to be passed down to the next generation.

Notice that I did not address honeymoon or wedding costs.

Things are up in air about the money, since we don't know any details of where it came from and when.

I'm very interested in this - you wouldn't happen to have any links/information on those cases, would you?

(and you wouldn't happen to know if any of these cases took place in PA?)

Thanks.

 

[mistoffolees]

I have seen cases where the courts considered a family heirloom to be a conditional gift. Rather than an outright gift, it was considered to be "on loan" to be passed down to the next generation.

That's a long way from saying that he 'ought to be able' to get the jewelry back.

That's actually a fairly unusual occurrence, in fact. A gift is almost always treated as a gift by the courts in divorce proceedings unless there is a document stating otherwise.

 

[LdiJ]

I'm very interested in this - you wouldn't happen to have any links/information on those cases, would you?

(and you wouldn't happen to know if any of these cases took place in PA?)

Thanks.

I don't have anything off the top of my head. One case was in my state (IN) and I don't remember where any of the others were. It was case law research that a couple of us were doing for a mutual friend.