Getting Divorced...Need help with marital asset

Illum120 said:

What is the name of your state? MAINE

I got married in december. In January I got sent overseas. I came home in March on leave. While home, my (soon to be ex) wife and I entered a lease for a new vehicle. She could not get the lease because her credit extremely poor. She has a history of charging up credit cards and then not paying them off, owns another vehicle that she was routinely late on payments, and almost had the vehicle repossessed on several occassions. They did a credit check on me, and we were able to obtain the lease using my credit. My name is listed on the lease as the primary, and she is the secondary. A few weeks after signing for the lease and going back overseas, I found out that she had been cheating on me, and I can prove it. The vehicle is registered in her name, and she has made the payments so far. The vehicle is the only marital asset that is owned. I fear that if she is given the vehicle, that she will be late and/or miss payments, and since my credit was used to purchase the vehicle, it would affect my credit not hers. Also, she took very poor care of the previous vehicle, and there is substancial damage to the car and I fear that she might do the same to the new vehicle now that we are going to get divorced. This is a concern to me, because according to the lease, I am ultimately responsible for the lease vehicle. I am concerned mainly because if she gets the vehicle she could do serious damage to my credit by not making payments on the vehicle.
Is there anything that I can do to protect myself in the divorce when it comes to the vehicle? Would I be entitled to the vehicle? Should I get a lawyer to argue this for me on the grounds of her past credit history?

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LdiJ said:

Its going to be up to the judge. Sure, you can hire an attorney to argue the point for you, but you do a pretty good job of presenting a logical argument for you getting the vehicle all by yourself. What you need to do is figure out what her arguments would be in favor of her getting the vehicle...and be prepared to defend against those as well.

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Illum120 said:

Thank you for the advice. The only arguement that I could see her having is that she paid for the vehicle to be registered and has been making the payments on the vehicle. What could I say in response to that?

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LdiJ said:

Well...if you haven't been out any money to date, and she has been faithful with the payments to date it might be tough.....all you could do is argue based on her past history.

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Illum120 said:

Do you know if there would be any way that I could make a contract with her that would require her to make automatically deposit the money into my account, and then have the money taken out of my account to make the payment. This is an idea that I have as a solution, that way I would be sure that the payments were made on time. Also, do you think I could write in the contract that she is responsible for any extra money that has to be paid upon the termination of the lease? If she were to agree to this, and we signed such a contract, would it hold up when it comes time to turn the vehicle in at the end of the lease?
Could I just take her name off the lease, or would that be a bad move?

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LdiJ said:

You can't take her name off the lease at this point. Not unless she agreed and you basically refinanced. Obviously she is not going to agree to that since she wants the car.

Anything that the two of you decide to do about this needs to be within the context of your divorce. Yes, you can put any agreements that you like in place to try to protect your credit. However its probably in your best interest to try as hard as you can to keep the car yourself, first.

Is this the only vehicle the two of you have? Is there another vehicle that she could be provided instead of this one?

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