Sworn Financial Statement Questions lexideff: I've started the divorce process and now I need to do that financial statement thing. I have some questions (I should probably talk to my lawyer, but I don't want to have to wait until Monday).
My husband and I have a child. I left him in VA, and moved to CO. He never gave me any money for our child and with a whole bunch of debt I required during our relationship, I had to move in with my parents to get me back on my feet.
Here's the deal: I still live with my parents. They pay for almost everything. They pay for diapers, food, and most clothing for my son. They pay for most of my food. I only pay for my personal bills (cell phone, car payment, student loans, car insurance, medical, etc.). I do, however, pay my parents $900 in "rent." I say "rent" because I get it back when I move out in January so that I have an emergency fund.
If I say I pay X amount for food and diapers, etc, am I lying? I will have to start paying for everything in January. Even though I give my parents money every month, it is not really rent. Also, I owe my grandfather a lot of money, as he gave me a loan to pay off my credit cards so I wouldn't have to worry about interest.
Also, I just got health and other benefits at my job. Let's just say for sake of having actual numbers that my salary is $1000 a month before taxes. Well, I just got my paystub for my first check with the benefit deductions. It adds the money that they pay for the premiums and everything, so it is saying that I make that much more money before taxes - like $400 more than my actual salary (I'm sorry if the way I worded it doesn't make sense). So even though my salary is X amount for the year, at the end, if you add up all my checks before taxes and deductions, I will be making X plus $4800. I guess my question is, how am I supposed to fill out the financial statement based on that?
And regarding bank statements, credit card statements, etc. - what exactly do I need to provide? My husband and I do not have any joint accounts whatsoever, and we basically never did throughout our almost 3 year marriage.
Does this financial statement affect child support? I think that is the thing I am most concerned with. The courts won't consider my parents support to be additional income, will they?
Sorry this is so long. I don't have anyone that I know that has gone through this before. Husband was divorced before, but they did everything by themselves and it was less complicated because there were no children.
Re: Sworn Financial Statement Questions doctorjoel: On the CO Finanical Affidavit there is a column for current expenses and one right next to it for anticipated changes. You should not put things in the form that are plainly not true, but by the same token you can put in the legitimate expected changes that are coming (probably with a date they go into effect). You can probably legitimately call the money you pay as "rent". You can list the debt to your grandfather as long as it is realliy debt you would pay back eventually.
For salary, you need to put what will show up on your W-2. You might need to check with your HR or finance people for that. The form also has places for the money withheld, so fill in the appropriate values there.
For bank statements, etc., you have to provide them because unless you had an ante nuptial agreement regarding marital assets, and agreement from both parties that separately owned assets are non-marital assets, or "proof" that the assets were yours prior to the marriage, the court will consider them marital assets.
In CO the child support is based on spreadsheets. They fill in numbers based on the income of each party and tabulated expenses of each party. Assuming you are the holder of most (>258 over nights) of the parenting time, then you would be owed child support from forumlas and the the percentage of the total income each of you have.
The courts are unlikely to consider your parents support as income for you, and anything you get in the rebate will not be counted as marital assets to be divided, particularly if it is post-separation. In general, gifts, inhertiance, and so forth are allowed to remain separate property.
I'm not a lawyer but just went through 11 months of this... But you should probably talk to one, even if you don't retain him/her to represent you in the proceeding. It could be a couple hundred dollars very well spent.
Re: Sworn Financial Statement Questions lexideff: Thanks for replying. This whole financial thing is getting me very frustrated! I do have a lawyer (fortunately, the company I work for has a fabulous legal plan that I am participating in).
This is partly why I didn't leave a long time ago. It took too much effort to leave, but I'd finally gotten to the point where I realized that I would be miserable for the rest of my life unless I got out of the situation.
