Running out of time and legal avenues, please help! What is the name of your state? Arizona
My husband filed divorce and due to some unusual sets of circumstances (I was responsible for my recently widowed and disabled mother who had been just hospitalized for 4 months and I wasn't sure if she would survive.) A Response could not be filed in the time allowed by court. My husband than filed for a Default leaving me to wait for the Default to be dismissed and signed by the court to proceed. Meanwhile Temporary Support was inaccurately calculated by the court based on the false financial information provided in the original Petition that was filed by my spouse. This order consisted of $300.00 a month for child support which finally started in March of 2002. We originally separated on March 9, 2001. My husband had falsely stated that I had an income that was almost equal to his own income even though I had not received a paycheck in over 14 years. I did all of the administrative duties for the family business (which we own equally) and I have been raising our two children prior to our separation. Since then I have been raising our children solely by myself without any income. As a result I had exaughsted all of my financial resources. My exspouse drained all personal & business accounts and has all the business equipment and continues to bring in income from the business while living for free at his parents. I hired legal representation on June 7, 2002 with $1500.00 that I borrowed from my brother in Cal. for a retainer. Due to the firm’s negligence, months of delays, the last minute resignation to the firm of my assigned lawyer, etc. nothing had been done with my case until Sept 26, 2002 when a 15 minute review hearing was finally heard. The firm assigned a new lawyer to the firm & my case, just days prior to our review hearing. The new lawyer didn't even know that we had filed for the hearing and what we wanted the court to review. He did not once bring up the false financial information in the original Petition, the Default, or waiting for the Default to be overturned, and then the Default not being signed by the judge. He did not even tell the court about the inaccurate Support calculations, Back support, Non payment of Auto insurance a Violation of the Preliminary injunction A.R.S. 25-315(A). Most important he did not explain that as a result of these issues I'm now broke and have been desperately awaiting to be heard by the court. This all happened even after a written complaint etc. to the firm. Now my request for Modification of Support has been further delayed until November 26, 2002 at an evidentuary hearing. I filed a complaint, now pending with the AZ. State Bar. In July I had to refinance the new loan on my house which I purchased on my own with my half of the proceeds from the sale of the family home in June of 2001. Also in July I had to sale a brand new ATV Vehicle used only 5 times that I had purchased for our two children as a gift just prior to my separation in March 2001. This gift had been bought with money belonging solely to myself, this was not a part of any community property. All this just to come up with some extra money to survive. I've been unable to look for employment because of all the time put into all of this. I now stand a chance of loosing my home and I cannot even afford to feed my kids. I cannot afford another lawyer and I'm being harrassed by both my husband's attorney as well as the firm I just filed complaint with. I'm running out of time and am almost on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Is there anyone out there that can help? |