Severing a Case
One of my clients is married and filed a case jointly with her now ex-husband. As one can imagine when a couple gets a divorce, they are not on good terms. She kept the house in the divorce, and that is the main thing being paid through the bankruptcy. However, the ex-husband does have some back child support that is scheduled to receive money, but hasn’t been paid anything yet. At first, the couple came to our office (separately) to discuss severing the case. The husband was willing to sever the case, and the wife was willing to sever the case. The only issue they didn’t agree on was who was to pay the attorney’s fees. The wife wanted the husband to pay all the attorney’s fees, and the husband wanted the wife to pay half.
After some disagreement, they decided to just leave the bankruptcy the way it is and each continue to make half the payment. The husband lost his job or quit his job, so was not making his half of the Chapter 13 Trustee payment. He has moved at least twice in the lat couple of months and seems to be avoiding his wife and our office. The wife decided she now wanted to sever the case and was willing to pay the attorney’s fees. We told her that was fine as long as she could get her husband to agree and that we needed a signed statement that he wanted to case severed. Of course, since the husband was not on speaking terms with his wife or our office, he just ignored all attempts to get in touch with him. Therefore, the case could not be severed without his permission.
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