QLD Property Settlement and Mediation - Husband Not Declaring Assets?

[Clancy]

yup narcs are bad news... But this is a law forum. No-one here can diagnose someone based on a few posts... I tend to refer to my ex simply as a nutter.

Some people are certainly less capable of negotiating reasonably than others... With those sorts of people who need to stare them down and realise that they are almost intuitively/ instinctive/ manipulative / strategic than your average punter.. In my case the ex genuinely believed she was entitled to 105% of the joint assets despite never doing a days work through the relationship - YUP 105%...
So in this person's case - She genuinely thinks the ex is 'forcing' her to pay half the mortgage.. If she stops she will get nasty messages, she will be told she is ruining both his and her credit rating... She will be told that when it goes to court she will be forced to pay the money back with interest blah blah it will be intimidation and not even a little bit illegal unless it is threatening.... But until the dynamic changes he won't mention the OS assets and will continue living in a house and only paying for half of it.

Well spoken....

One thing the OP may have forgotten to take into account is the rental value of the property. For example, my ex moved out of the family home to her mothers house, i am left here paying the mortgage on my own.

For the settlement, what i do is, I tally all my mortgage payments then weigh that against half of the rental value. You see, my ex owns half the house, but she is not benefiting by living here, so she is entitled to half the rental value!

 

[SamanthaJay]

Hi Rachael, my ex was similar although he did eventually go running to a lawyer once he got the 2nd letter from my lawyer.

We did not have to attend mediation due to a history of domestic violence.

We have 2 houses on the family property and he made me move into the 2nd one about 3 years before I left, whilst still cooking, cleaning etc for him, completely most of the farm duties whilst he worked and I worked 3 jobs (he is self employed and I completed his office work, and two of my own part time jobs including one that was night shift). Oh, he also insisted that I had to pay rent to him for that house...that I owned along with him

So, I agree, if you aren't living in the family home, stop paying the mortgage. Inform the bank that you are separated and they may give you a breather on the mortgage repayments. Our mortgage had less than $20,000 approx to be paid off because of the funds we had sitting in the redraw so the bank stopped either of us being able to withdraw from the redraw. He received bad advice (from my perspective anyway) and continued to make mortgage repayments for a year after I left until his lawyer told him to stop. Then the interest just came from the redraw. Yours might get worried when you stop paying the mortgage too.

My ex also started selling assets such as collectible vehicles, business tools and vehicles and other farm equipement. He didn't declare most of it. It was difficult for me to prove and him and his lawyer just kept denying it existed. Luckily the vehicles that were registered were able to be traced.

Bottom line, my ex learnt a very hard lesson. We bought our first property together 28 years before I left him. I worked for 5 years full time until I had our first child. I then worked for him, stayed home with the kids, took the kids to work whilst I worked for him, kept the farm going including growing all our fruit and veggies and meat and went back to working for others about 5 years before I left. He still thought he owned it all and I was not entitled to a cent. He told me for many years (before he started to make me pay rent in the 2nd house) that I should be grateful that I lived in the home for free and that I never had to pay rent.

I was threatened that if I tried to get child support, he'd hunt me down. I shouldn't have listened. Missed out on nearly 2 years of CS as a result. So hopefully you have put in a claim for child support as well.

He can ignore all your lawyer's correspondence as much as he wants but there will be court dates made and if he doesn't respond or turn up, it's just going to look bad for him and eventually the court will make the decision for you both.

 

[RachaelMC]

Ohhhhh he is the emotionally abusive type? Would you say he is narcissistic? Because dealing with a narcissist is a completely different ball game.... you could march him up to the gates of hell but he wont back down.

So if he is a Narcissist you will want to change your thinking, your goal will be to deal with the court, not your ex.

Still, you have to go through the process of mediation before going to court..... what you want to do is just maintain an act of being a responsible co-operative person - even though you know you will not succeed in mediation you still need to 'pretend' you are there to get an agreement, put on a nice show..... its all for the legal system, not your ex.

Yes he is a narcissist, this is my feel anyway. That is the exact reason why I needed to leave, it seems the older he got the more unrealistic he gets.
Thank you for your advice it all makes great scene.

 

[RachaelMC]

Nope he isn't forcing you to pay the mortgage.... You are choosing to. Stop paying it... Go on dare ya. You are wasting money by paying his mortgage... Look he sounds pretty unreasonable. BTW - I'm not a big fan of people diagnosing folk they have never met... Everyone's ex all of a sudden becomes a narcissist after separation, just like caught fish get better everytime the story gets re-told.

So have you applied for child support? if not, why not?

Stop paying the mortgage asap.

BTW for any financial settlement to be legally binding both parties need independent legal advice, so solicitors are basically unavoidable.

Why should he want to change the current set up, he gets the kid when he wants... and he has you paying money that you don't have to pay and you will never see again... You have to do something to change the current set up... Wait and see how fast he runs to a solicitor to sue you (blah blah)for not paying the mortgage

In regards to the mortgage,I only paid it when it bounced back twice. I am not willing to risk getting a bad credit.
Narcissist or not, from what I understood from my research online and from talking to lawyers, property settlement has a 4 steps process. I am willing to follow it and will be happy with what i get legally, I am actually happy with less but there are limits because i have a child to care for. On the other hand he doesn't want to do it through the legal system and wants to give me what he thinks is fair.

 

[RachaelMC]

It is not half the mortgage that i am paying, it is the full mortgage, I spoke to the bank and made it interest only. I also pay rent for my place which is 60% of my wages, I can only work part time because of the child and because my job is part time. I am not struggling financially, I do get a bit of help from Centerlink and child support. But this lifestyle is unsustainable. I am ok now but my available funds will be chewed up with legal fees very soon and i will be in trouble then.
It is unbelievable how expensive lawyers are. I am at a point where i avoid asking questions or sending emails.

Thank you for all who said mediation is the way to go at the start. Before i posted here i was deciding to apply to court without attempting mediation.

By the way we both agreed on separation. He actually wanted it more than me, he made clear that i wasn't good enough for him. He is very well educated and i never had a chance to go to UNI, I felt that he always look down on me. I spent my life trying everything i could think of to make him happy then in the last few years i gave up. He is just not a happy person.

So when we agreed on the separation i felt that he was relieved. Then when I asked him to move out he made it clear that he doesn't want to and that our house is his!! He wanted us to separate under the same roof. (it is always his way) I tried but it was so hard. I felt i was still under his control. My only option was to move out. Once i did he changed so much, he probably feels that he isn't in control anymore. He started punishing me. Paying the mortgage it part of his punishment.

 

[Clancy]

It is not half the mortgage that i am paying, it is the full mortgage, I spoke to the bank and made it interest only. I also pay rent for my place which is 60% of my wages, I can only work part time because of the child and because my job is part time. I am not struggling financially, I do get a bit of help from Centerlink and child support. But this lifestyle is unsustainable. I am ok now but my available funds will be chewed up with legal fees very soon and i will be in trouble then.
It is unbelievable how expensive lawyers are. I am at a point where i avoid asking questions or sending emails.

Thank you for all who said mediation is the way to go at the start. Before i posted here i was deciding to apply to court without attempting mediation.

By the way we both agreed on separation. He actually wanted it more than me, he made clear that i wasn't good enough for him. He is very well educated and i never had a chance to go to UNI, I felt that he always look down on me. I spent my life trying everything i could think of to make him happy then in the last few years i gave up. He is just not a happy person.

So when we agreed on the separation i felt that he was relieved. Then when I asked him to move out he made it clear that he doesn't want to and that our house is his!! He wanted us to separate under the same roof. (it is always his way) I tried but it was so hard. I felt i was still under his control. My only option was to move out. Once i did he changed so much, he probably feels that he isn't in control anymore. He started punishing me. Paying the mortgage it part of his punishment.

Narcissists are usually quite content if your compliant - they will still put you down regularly, but overall they are content so long as they have power over you and they don't like that situation to change.

My ex had a different personality profile..... she was always looking towards the future to gain happiness.... that new job will make me happy, that new car will make me happy, that new house will make me happy..... in the end none of it makes them happy. Eventually they will start turning their attention towards YOU, that you are the thing stopping them being happy, and they become increasingly critical and hateful over time. This is what i went through, its not nice. So she got rid of me, is she happy now? NOOOOOOO

 

[sammy01]

If u are not living in the house don't pay for it. Talk to the banks. Tell the ex he can either pay the mortgage himself or put the thing on the market... banks deal with this all the time. It will not damage your credit rating. But let's pretend it does... so what? Based on how poor you will be you will never be able to afford a home loan anyway....

 

[difficult times]

yes i agree, don't pay the mortgage, better to walk away, then put up with that crap, i was married to women for 12 years, total nut case, lost a house ,lived in a garage for two half years, happy.