I am not in a position to leave my husband at this moment, but I am trying to plan ahead. I am putting money aside (in a bank account that is not in my name so it can’t be traced back to me at a later date) but I’m wondering, how many months worth of bills should I have put aside as a nest egg before I officially separate?
Those funds still sound marital, regardless of whose name they’re in. As many months as you can accumulate would be optimal. There is no magic number.
How can it be considered marital money if it is a bank account that is just in someone else’s name? My name is not attached to it at all. As far as a person could be considered, it could just be my mother giving me money.
Not an Attorney
You are “putting money aside” with funds that are marital, not your mom’s money. It sounds like what you are trying to do is get an official blessing to defraud your husband out of part of the marital assets. If it was your husband doing this, I’m guessing you darn well would see why it was wrong. Will you get caught? I certainly hope so…and with your wording “not in my name so it can’t be traced back to me at a later date”, you know exactly what you are doing…
Above comment is correct. You would sometimes 'get away with it" but it would involve you lying to the court in testimony or in failure to list in financial disclosure. Your bringing your mom into it also. If you taking the money out of your accounts now, those records will probably be subpoenaed and you would probably be asked why you were doing that.
A lot of people use marital assets to pay for their own attorney, you just tell the truth about it and that money is accounted for (comes out of your part) of equitable distribution.
Definitely not a good idea to lie about the money that is put aside. I fully support PUTTING that money aside, but you need to be honest about it when you go to court.
I will say, however, that I had a car that was marital…fully paid for, etc…and I sold that bad boy and used the money to pay for my attorney, and the court actually ruled that because the funds were used for the proceedings that it was NOT subject to distribution…just a little tidbit of info that I thought you might find useful. Of course, some judges may not rule the same, but in my case, they did find that it was not subject to distribution in ED.
Was that divorce in NC though… it was was a Equal Distribution/community property state I would see that. In NC your usually going to be accountable.