Legal Question in Civil Litigation in Washington
Ex-husband refuses to refinance property after five years.
I was divorced back on 7/7/2000. I made a verbal agreement with my ex-husband that I would not make him buy me out on our joint property (land, gargage, trailer)if he refinanced within two years. This was valued at 10's of thousands of dollars. My ex-husband agreed but then refused unless I payed half the costs. I refered a mortage company to him but they could not give him a loan because the trailer was a 1973. He waited to long is the bottom line. I asked another mortage broker and he could get a land loan or equity loan. My ex-husband said he looked into that but it wouldn't work. My mortage broker says it will. My ex-husband doesn't want to spend the money is the bottom line. Now he claims amnesia. Over the past several years, I purchased two cars but am paying a high interest rate because my debt to income ratio. It was compounded when my now husband lost his job during the recession. We almost lost our car and it compounded the hardship we faced. We now want to refinance the car but he again refuses to honor our agreement.
My new husband has been very patient but now has a very good job and wants to force the issue. We need to know our options.
1 Answer from Attorneys
Re: Ex-husband refuses to refinance property after five years.
Interesting question. What you are looking for is a motion to enforce the decree.
Did you have an attorney do the dissolution? If yes, go find him/her and ask for help. This is not self-help law.
When you get divorced, all your community property should become the separate property of one or the other of you. If there is no mention in the decree of the property (if it hasn't been divided) then you are tenants in common as to the property - real or personal.
If the decree states that "X will occur" and X has not occurred, then you can force the issue.
You may have noticed that verbal agreements are worth the paper they are written on. That said, if the decree clearly says "H takes X, W takes Y" and he is refusing to cooperate to make that happen, then a court may well back you up.
The jurisdiction is predicated on the decree. Get a copy and read it, and any attachments. The court has jurisdiction to enforce its orders.
Hope this helps.
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