Contempt of Court Preparation
(Consolidating from a separate thread I started per request)
Although my ex and I area already divorced (finalized less than a month ago) - he has been violating the terms of the divorce decree as well as the TRO that had been in place for the 90 day period.
The issues I want to bring up in court are:
1. He has not provided proof that I am no longer on his student loans as a co-signer. (he gave me the number to call, but I'm not "information authorized" so I couldn't verify anything, which I explained to him).
2. We agreed to sell some joint possession and split the funds from the sale. Once sold, he had agreed on the amount to provide to me. On the day he was supposed to pay me, he suddenly decided that I owed him money, and pocketed all of the funds.
I plan to print out all of the emails and have a copy of our divorce decree that says that our personal debt (the money he thinks I owe is on a home depot credit card in solely his name) is our own responsibility. I plan to ask the judge to order that he pay me my portion of the sale (fully documented in email), and to halt the sale of any additional jointly owned items from the home unless we both agree to the sale.
3. Since we filed in Jan 2011, he did not collect rent from the tenant/renter in our joint home since Jan 2011. I vacated the home the end of Jan, and was told that he would be paying rent. My ex later admitted to lying to me, and told me he said that to "get me out of the house".
4. My ex decided to change the locks on the house to show me the "consequences" for telling him I would take him back to court. I have this in an email. He does not have any court order barring me from the house, and the house is on the market / pending foreclosure. He has not paid anything on the house since Jan 2011, and is essentially squatting on the property. What can I do to get access to the property for the belonging I had left to help "stage" the house?
DETAIL:
The renter had been paying for more than a year to rent a room - I have the checks and email communications for his agreement. I contacted the renter to try to resolve his past due rent (letting him know that I had planned to take this to small claims, unless he would communicate with me), and he said he was paying on the past due amount directly to my ex, and would like to continue to pay directly to him. I have this in writing.
When I take this to the judge, should I map out the past due payments, and ask since my ex is the person the tenant wishes to pay directly, that my ex is responsible for paying me for half of the rental income from our property? FYI, the rent does not include utilities - those are divided separately.
My ex is denying that he has gotten money from the renter, aside from utility payments. I don't believe him, and have no visibility to his finances to show otherwise. The renter is uncomfortable because he's living in the home with my ex, and doesn't want to anger him.
What are your recommendations for preparing for a contempt hearing. Is a written narrative about each of these situations appropriate? I have emails and bank records regarding the sale of property, the renter, and the student loan issue. My ex has tried everything under the sun to prevent me from accessing the rental income - from saying that there IS no rental agreement, to saying that since the divorce was finalized there is no protection of the rental / financial agreement, and that no new terms were negotiated. I have acknowledgment from the renter that he knows he owes for back rent, and is paying this amount, as well as more than a years worth of canceled checks and bank statements with "rent' in the check memo line from the renter.
I appreciate any advice!
