Hello,
My Ex and I have a bill together (his name is not on it) that he agreed to pay and I created a contract that he signed agreeing to the payments and the terms. Well we just got divorced last summer and it’s been 2 months since he has paid me for the bill, I went to court and filed a “money owed” complaint but was told by the judge that I needed to “re-open” my divorce since this was a bill during the marriage. Can you provide me some insight to this?
I have personally went through the same type case several years ago. I filed the same type of small claims suit that had. I was granted a judgement against my ex. I would recommend that you follow up with an execution if your are granted the judgement.
Thanks Robbie,
The only thing is the judge did not hear my case, she immediately stated that in our state and per a law that I would need to “re-open” the divorce or something along those lines to file this complaint, because this bill was incurred during the marriage. Any thoughts?
I have never heard of reopening a divorce. To get marital debts and assets divided, you needed to have an equitable distribution claim pending at the time the divorce was granted. I have heard of some people getting the divorce judgment overturned so that you can file the equitable distribution claim, but that is a fairly complicated procedure. If there is no equitable distribution claim pending, assets and debts should be distributed as titled. If he owes you money for a debt, it seems like you went the appropriate route by filing a small claims action.