Need some advice...

[DC Tom]

So are you insinuating that Navy personnel are part of the women's department? You must not know that Sailors and Marines are the bastard step children of the armed forces. We would get into $&^# all the time with each other, but heaven help the Air Force or Army guy that tried to get in the middle of a tussle.

 

It's actually something I heard from a friend of mine who was a Marine court reporter. One court martial she was working, some Navy puke referred to the Marines as a department of the Navy. The judge - a Marine - said "Yeah, the men's department." And since court was in session, she had to record it on the transcript.

 

Which she thought - and I agree - was hilarious, since that made it a matter of official record.

[Flutie Flakes]

It's actually something I heard from a friend of mine who was a Marine court reporter. One court martial she was working, some Navy puke referred to the Marines as a department of the Navy. The judge - a Marine - said "Yeah, the men's department." And since court was in session, she had to record it on the transcript.

 

Which she thought - and I agree - was hilarious, since that made it a matter of official record.

 

 

 

All kidding aside, to USMC Bills Fan, it is good you are seeking advice of counsel if the creditors are unwilling to provide you any relief. A good attorney can give you better advice than any of us arm chair quarterbacks. It is a tough situation to be in, but with bankruptcy, you get "one shot at the well" so to speak and hopefully you are able to address your budget situation so you don't have to rely on credit to cover your day to day expenses.

[Maury Ballstein]

Sorry to hear about this.

Is there a way you can go to the divorce court and modify your support obligations?

This. Giving up 50% for a few years of sex is the worst. Get a job ex wives!!

[USMCBillsFan]

Sorry to hear about this.

 

Is there a way you can go to the divorce court and modify your support obligations?

There's nothing I can do. Federal Military Spouse Protection Act. After 10 years of marriage they are automatically entitled to 50% unless they sign it away. No way my ex wife is going to freely give up 1600 a month. Plus I pay that regardless if she remarries or not. It's disgusting.

Just out of curiosity...how much would you need to clear the deck from all your credit cards?

I'm about 60 grand in the hole.

[plenzmd1]

There's nothing I can do. Federal Military Spouse Protection Act. After 10 years of marriage they are automatically entitled to 50% unless they sign it away. No way my ex wife is going to freely give up 1600 a month. Plus I pay that regardless if she remarries or not. It's disgusting.

I'm about 60 grand in the hole.

Wow, i had no idea on that act. Maybe i am only seeing one side...but does that mean soldier can go off to war and put his/her life on the line, and come home and their spouse leaves them for whatever reason and they have to give up 50% of their income...no matter the reason or circumstance? Even if the other party makesmore?

 

WOW...WTF, is that how we treat our military ?????? I must be missing something.

[USMCBillsFan]

There could be extenuating circumstances like that to allow the military member to fight it. But I had no such case. The law is designed to protect spouses who have to move every 3 years and can't establish a career. My ex, however, was civil service and moved up every time I moved. Didn't matter though, still had to pay it to her.

[Just Jack]

I filed in NY about 15 years ago, rules have changed since then so I really can't give specific advice, except for one thing my lawyer said, when I mentioned I hadn't decided between Chapter 7 or 13.... "wouldn't you rather have it all go away than still have some of it hanging over your head?"

[Rob's House]

I think somebody mentioned this earlier, but if you default on your CCs and let them go over 90 days past due you can usually get them to take a payment for a fraction of the debt. You get a collector trying to hit their goal at the end of the month and they might take 30% in satisfaction of the whole balance.

 

If the bulk of the debt you're trying to get out from under is unsecured debt then bankruptcy might be the best remedy. It's worth at least talking to someone about it before you try anything else. It would be a shame to drop thousands on debts that bankruptcy would have wiped out anyway.

[mead107]

Taking her hunting.

[Gordio]

 

Only if they go through the process and expense of suing you and obtaining a judgement against you. It's cheaper for them to settle. Also depends on the $ amount of the debt.

 

At work I've only ever seen garnishments for back taxes and child support.

 

 

Agree with this. I am not saying it can't happen but in most cases it is just not worth their time. They will try to scare you with it but very rarely does it go thru.

They never did to me. But they never sued me. Discover did[oddly by far the smallest of my CC debt $1700] and got some small % of my Alaska permanent fund check but no wages. Discover sued me themselves, not a collection agency. I don't believe a CA can sue, or by the time they get it it's too late. I got several letters from CAs stating the debt was to old to sue and offering to settle for a small %. I couldn't believe they told me it was to late to sue it might be a legal thing.

IRS, child support and maybe others like gov backed student loans completely different. They can and will clean out your bank account.

 

 

& also agree with this. IRS, Child Support & student loans. Those are completely different animal. They can & will clean you out.

[ICanSleepWhenI'mDead]

. . . Federal Military Spouse Protection Act. After 10 years of marriage they are automatically entitled to 50% unless they sign it away. . . .

 

I have never claimed any particular educational background or work history in my posts. I'm ignorant about a lot of things, but let's just say this sounded odd to me. So I did a little googling on the inter web tubes and found this, which appears to be a Coast Guard-authored summary last edited in 2010 describing how the Uniformed Services Spouses' Protection Act works :

 

https://www.uscg.mil/ppc/ras/fmspouse.pdf

 

 

 

The Uniformed Services Former Spouses' Protection Act (FSPA), 10 U.S.C. 1408, recognizes the right of state courts to distribute military retired pay to a spouse or former spouse and provides a method for enforcing these orders through the Coast Guard. The FSPA itself does not provide for an automatic entitlement to a portion of the member's retired pay to a former spouse. A former spouse must have been awarded a portion of a member's military retired pay as property in their final decree of divorce, dissolution, annulment, or legal separation (the court order).

 

I don't have time right now to dig deeper, but unless the law significantly changed in the last 5 years, which seems unlikely, it appears that you may have been misinformed. Based on just this one Coast Guard publication, it sounds more like a court has to establish what portion of your retirement pay (if any) your ex-spouse is entitled to get in the divorce, and AFTER a final court order establishes that entitlement, the ex-spouse can use the provisions of the FSPA to get paid that portion of your retirement pay directly.

 

That's all I have time to investigate right now - - may not be helpful but thought you should know.

 

Couple questions:

 

1. What state court issued the final divorce order?

 

2. When was it signed by the judge?

 

Good luck. And thanks for your service.

Edited March 31, 2015 by ICanSleepWhenI'mDead

[USMCBillsFan]

 

I have never claimed any particular educational background or work history in my posts. I'm ignorant about a lot of things, but let's just say this sounded odd to me. So I did a little googling on the inter web tubes and found this, which appears to be a Coast Guard-authored summary last edited in 2010 describing how the Uniformed Services Spouses' Protection Act works :

 

https://www.uscg.mil/ppc/ras/fmspouse.pdf

 

 

 

 

I don't have time right now to dig deeper, but unless the law significantly changed in the last 5 years, which seems unlikely, it appears that you may have been misinformed. Based on just this one Coast Guard publication, it sounds more like a court has to establish what portion of your retirement pay (if any) your ex-spouse is entitled to get in the divorce, and AFTER a final court order establishes that entitlement, the ex-spouse can use the provisions of the FSPA to get paid that portion of your retirement pay directly.

 

That's all I have time to investigate right now - - may not be helpful but thought you should know.

 

Couple questions:

 

1. What state court issued the final divorce order?

 

2. When was it signed by the judge?

 

Good luck. And thanks for your service.

It was filed in NC, and by a very savvy divorce lawyer. Was told by my lawyer I couldn't fight it unless she was willing to sign paperwork waiving her right to it.

[Canadian Bills Fan]

I work in A/R and come from a family of debt collectors.

 

Have you tried working out a payment plan with the collection agencies?

 

A lot of them will most likely accept something instead of turning it down.

 

Have you looked in to debt consolidation? That may be an option for you.

 

As far as your pension goes, is there any way you could get the government to lower what your ex wife gets due to your financial troubles? You could show them your collection notices if they need proof.

 

 

Like others have said, if all else fails, bankruptcy is your best option and dont feel embarassed or ashamed. Millions of people file for it every year

 

 

 

CBF

[Fan in Chicago]

Since I retired from the Marines I've struggled financially.

 

Any insight would be appreciated.

Several have stated these options but reading about your situation, looks like there are a few things we have to assume:

- You are working as much as you can and no possibility of new income

- Your job is secure and you are in no risk of losing it

- Your payments to the ex are fixed and while there may be a possibility of another look, assume nothing can change

 

The revenue and expenditure side is almost fixed. Which means you have three choices with your debt:

- Talk to the credit card companies and re-negotiate to a lower rate/payment arrangement. I think they should be willing to do this especially if you can convince them that your only alternative is bankruptcy

- Can you not talk to your credit union for a personal loan at a low interest rate to pay off alll your debt ? I used to be on the board of a (civilian) credit union and used to run specials on rates to help members pay off their high interest loans

- Bankruptcy . IMHO, this should be the last resort if above options dont work

 

Two final thoughts. First, thank you for your service. Secondly, please don't get married again

[Chef Jim]

I work in A/R and come from a family of debt collectors.

 

Have you tried working out a payment plan with the collection agencies?

 

A lot of them will most likely accept something instead of turning it down.

 

Have you looked in to debt consolidation? That may be an option for you.

 

As far as your pension goes, is there any way you could get the government to lower what your ex wife gets due to your financial troubles? You could show them your collection notices if they need proof.

 

 

Like others have said, if all else fails, bankruptcy is your best option and dont feel embarassed or ashamed. Millions of people file for it every year

 

 

 

CBF

 

I'm going to play devil's advocate but why should the ex have to take less money, an amount agreed to in court, because he's found himself in debt?

[mead107]

Barrow all you can. Put it in a safe. Then pay nobody. The big crash is just around the corner

[ICanSleepWhenI'mDead]

It was filed in NC, and by a very savvy divorce lawyer. Was told by my lawyer I couldn't fight it unless she was willing to sign paperwork waiving her right to it.

 

Sorry, but I'm unclear. Are you saying that:

 

(1) your ex-wife had a very savvy divorce lawyer who drafted the divorce paperwork, and you had a separate lawyer of your own who "said you couldn't fight it unless she signed a written waiver of her right to it?"

 

or

 

(2) you consider your own lawyer the "very savvy divorce lawyer?"

 

I know that sounds like an odd question, but answering it may help guide my efforts to assist you if I can (and as my time allows).

[ICanSleepWhenI'mDead]

Your time is probably better spent getting on the phone and trying to work out some sort of payment plan with your creditors if you can, as others have suggested. You noted, however, that the $1600/month that the gov't diverts from your net retirement pay is a big reason why you are having current difficulty making ends meet. So even though the odds of getting that $1600/month reduced are low, you might want to read the rest of this post to see if that can be done.

 

I had some time today and some interest in how military retirement pay is treated in divorce, so I checked out some things. Here's what I found (with supporting links because I'm just some anonymous internet poster with a Bills problem and brothers named Darryl):

 

1. "Federal Military Spouse Protection Act. After 10 years of marriage they are automatically entitled to 50% unless they sign it away."

 

Absolutely not true. North Carolina makes both military and other types of pensions, whether or not vested yet, divisible in divorce. So your ex-wife had a legal interest in any pension rights you acquired during the marriage. But that is true of all married couples in North Carolina, and has absolutely NOTHING to do with the fact that you were in the military. BTW, you likewise had a legal interest in any pension rights that your ex-wife acquired while you were married to her. If she had to change jobs frequently that may not have amounted to much, but it's something that should still have been considered when arriving at an "equitable distribution" of your joint assets.

 

http://www.nclamp.gov/c_eq_distr.asp

 

If you doubt the accuracy of the information in the above link because of what others have told you in the past, here's one that explains a little about where it came from:

 

http://www.americanbar.org/groups/legal_assistance_military_personnel/about_us.html

 

2. It's possible that you misunderstood what your own lawyer told you during your divorce. But if your own lawyer really did tell you that any law absolutely required you to give up 50% of your net military retirement pay in all circumstances solely because your ex-wife was married to you for 10 or more years of your military service - - you got very sh***y legal advice. If you want to see how your lawyer should have analyzed your situation, read this:

 

http://apps.americanbar.org/family/military/silent/mpd_servicemember.pdf

 

It took me about 5 minutes to find the link to the Coast Guard document in my earlier post. With another 5 minutes of effort, I found a website for the Defense Finance and Accounting Service, which provides payment services of the U.S. Department of Defense. As I understand it, that's probably the entity that actually takes the $1600/month out of your net monthly military pension check and sends it directly to your ex-wife. Here's a link to the portion of their website that has Frequently Asked Questions about the Uniformed Services Former Spouses' Protection Act ("USFSPA"):

 

http://www.dfas.mil/garnishment/usfspa/faqs.html

 

The answer to the first-listed question states:

 

 

 

there is no Federal law that automatically entitles a former spouse to a portion of a member’s military retired pay. A former spouse must have been awarded a portion of a member’s military retired pay in a State court order. The Uniformed Services Former Spouses’ Protection Act (USFSPA), Title 10, United States Code, Section 1408, passed in 1981, accomplishes two things. First, it authorizes (but does not require) State courts to divide military retired pay as a marital asset or as community property in a divorce proceeding. Second, it provides a mechanism for a former spouse to enforce a retired pay as property award by direct payments from the member’s retired pay.

 

Now maybe your lawyer told you that in your particular circumstances, it was highly likely that a North Carolina judge would award 50% of your military pension to your ex-wife, so there wasn't much point in fighting to try to keep more of your pension. But that's a far cry from saying that the USFSPA always requires giving up 50%.

 

As just one example of how you might have been entitled to keep more than 50% of your military pension, go back to this link:

 

http://www.nclamp.gov/c_eq_distr.asp

 

Read the second paragraph of the section entitled "Present Values, Future Division." If you were in the military for 10 years before you got married, and then for another 10 years between the date of your marriage and the date of your divorce, the starting point for the analysis of what would be an equitable distribution of your military pension is that your ex-wife would be entitled to 25% of it, not 50%. If you were in the military for any length of time before you got married, your ex-wife probably should have gotten less than 50% of your military pension. I don't know enough about your situation to know if that type of analysis applies to you.

 

Now read the second paragraph under the section entitled "Procedural Considerations." The gov't can only pay a portion of your military pension directly to your ex-wife if the North Carolina judge signed an order making an equitable distribution of some portion of your military pension to her. Based on your comments in this thread and the relative rarity of fully contested divorce trials, it's highly likely that you and your wife signed a separation agreement that was incorporated into the terms of a consent judgment signed by the NC judge. If you want to understand more about how separation agreements work and are interpreted in North Carolina, read this link:

 

http://www.ncfamilylaw.com/download/sao23.html

 

In particular, note the answer to question #13, which states:

 

 

 

Unlike the terms concerning children, which are always modifiable by the court, the terms that pertain to adults cannot be modified by the court except in very limited circumstances. For example, if the separation agreement has been incorporated into a court decree, then the court has the power in North Carolina to modify the alimony terms based on a substantial change of circumstances. If the terms involve property division and the agreement has been incorporated, the court can only modify it if it is executory in nature (i.e., it has not yet been completed, such as the transfer next year of a car title to a spouse), as opposed to those items which are already executed by the parties (such as the deed to the house that was signed over to a spouse at the same time as the separation agreement was signed). The court can overturn a separation agreement if it was signed due to fraud, coercion, ignorance or lack of mental capacity. In most cases, however, this is difficult to prove.

 

3. All the USFSPA does is provide a mechanism for your ex-wife to get paid her share of your military pension directly by the gov't (rather than by you) in any amount that the NC judge ordered. So if you can somehow get the NC judge to modify the earlier order awarding your ex-wife 50% of your military pension, you should be able to keep more than 50% of it. That will be hard to do, though, even in the best of circumstances.

 

You should look through the separation agreement, and through the consent judgment that probably incorporates it, for a couple things. First, there is a slim chance that either document might have some language about how it can be modified in the future. If your ex-wife or her attorney were exceptionally greedy, they might have tried to leave open a possibility for future modification of the agreement or the consent judgment so that the ex-wife could come back later and ask for an increased award. Because the existing court order already gives her 50% that's probably unlikely, but you should look. If the door is open for her to seek a change, it should be open for you as well.

 

Second, you should look to see if there is any language in the agreement or the consent judgment to the effect that your ex-wife would receive 50% of your military pension as a form of alimony or ongoing support rather than as a division of an existing property interest. That's also unlikely, but look anyway. The NC judge has the power to modify the earlier 50% award based on a "substantial change of circumstances" if the 50% was originally awarded as a form of alimony or ongoing support.

 

4. Also, you might want to consider a legal malpractice claim against your divorce lawyer, but only if BOTH (1) you have something in writing from the lawyer stating that your ex-wife was automatically entitled to 50% of your military pension under the USFSPA because she was married to you for at least 10 years of your military service, AND (2) you were already in the service for some length of time before you married her. There are also time limits for bringing a legal malpractice claim, which is why I asked you upthread about when the NC judge signed the divorce order.

 

5. Finally, I took a look at whether you could get the obligation for your ex-wife to be paid a portion of your military pension discharged in bankruptcy. If you think the explanations above are complicated, that issue is worse. It looks like the answer was usually no some years ago, but the link below appears to predate some significant changes in federal bankruptcy law, so it's not a final answer to the question:

 

http://www.divorcesource.com/research/dl/bankruptcy/94jun118.shtml

 

As I said at the top, you are more likely to be successful at getting your creditors to modify your payment obligations than at getting the payments to your ex-wife out of your military pension reduced. But if you want to try that, now you've got a road map.

 

Hang in there.

Edited April 3, 2015 by ICanSleepWhenI'mDead

[mead107]

Any update?