Heading to Court ...... long

[awakenlynn]

Well, hubby made it to TX midday today.  It was a long drive for him.  He met with his attorney and has court tomorrow (3/13) afternoon.  We are taking ex to court for his non-compliance with the current order.  She did not notify us by the date ordered by the court to let us know Christmas transportation.  Even when she did notify us, we had already let her know that the court ordered cities for Christmas (Dallas to Moline) did not exist.  With that being the case she was really supposed to drive SD up to our court ordered meeting place.  She kept insisting a flight so we found the next best thing keeping her airport the same and us driving 5hrs out of our way each direction to the airport that did have a non-stop flight (court ordered), keeping to the spirit of the order.  We already have heard from the judge (unofficially) that ex was supposed to drive SD for Christmas visit.  So we lost the money from the flight + gas for the drive + (the blown tire that would not happened since if we knew she was not putting SD on the flight we would not have been on that highway and driven over something);  we did not find out ex was not putting SD on the flight until an hour away from our airport when we called to ask her a question.  [She told SD that hubby did not buy a ticket and that the airline info we sent (as court ordered) was made up].

So we are asking for make-up time, some expenses to be recovered and to have ex bond every flight.  Ex decided 4 days before the flight she did not want the one we had reserved and had one she choose that had to get SD out of school early and it was not an early release date.  It would have been another $800 to change the flight.  VERY cost prohibitive!!!

Now with spring break coming up, we let ex know last month that hubby was going to drive down to TX and pick SD up.  Court order says hubby gets visitation Friday 6pm if he is in the area.  SD was supposed to have her last soccer game on Saturday, but that was moved this last week (and we verified everything with the school).  Coaches of both teams were upset, they had agreed to play Saturday because they were losing alot of kids to spring break when they played during spring break, but the school district notified them that they could not play on any Saturday before spring break.  Why should they care if the coaches both agreed the date was better.  So now the game is Monday.  But anyways, ex kept insisting hubby could not have SD until after the Saturday game which is against the explicit orders.  So the 3 day visit is now 7 days.  Thank God for tax returns!!!!  That and his mother went down withy hubby and she is helping with the costs.  Our attorney added the ex's threats to the petition showing her blatent disregard to the order that she had initiated last year.

Hubby went to his appt today with attorney and ex's attorney called and said by the way, have you gotten our petition, we are suing you too for child support.  Saying we owed like $3500.  LOL!!!!  That would mean ex hasn't gotten child support for 15 months!  We have our bank records, SDU records (which are somewhat questionable).  Attorney has not gotten the paperwork and hubby has not been served, we think they will try to do it at the court house.  We do have arrears of about $730 to $1300.  Hubby has been laid off for 11 wks now and while we have made little payments they haven't been full payments (hubby is getting about $200 less a week) and then when TX was taking over jurisdiction we actually had a credit, but it took them so long to get things started with the employer that we owed about $450 but that amount was based on an old order (hence the small arrears) and we have never heard back from the child support office except to get the withholding notice which did not include arrears.  So if they changed the original arrears to the current order (and didn't notify us) then that is the larger arrears amount.  We did pay some with the tax returns and are hoping that one of the conversations with the CS office will stick and they will send us a new withholding notice including arrears.  One thought is that the CS office which has been collecting the money has either not cleared out their records from when TX took over from IL (alot of errors for about 6 months and both states were taking support and not notifiing the other state) and its possible that they have been collecting and have not paid ex out (especially if she did not file the correct paperwork--she has a habit of picking and choosing whatever she thinks with get her more and the state has caught on that alot she has sent in has been inaccurate, out dated or just plain wrong).  She has already been caught in a few lies.

Just needed to get it all off my chest, with him gone and conversation limited, I don't have anyone to really work things through with.

Thanks, awakenlynn

[lucky]

So what happened in court?  Do you know yet?

[awakenlynn]

Went to court Friday...it was DH and his attorney, ex and her attorney and the Attorney General (not sure if him or his assistant).

Child support is all screwed up, that will take awhile for the state to figure out of course.  They thought it was like $3500, then like $2400, but we have a letter we have to fax to them with an amount of $440, so they have to figure out where that came from.  Then they realized that they can't follow the IL order as TX ordered because their system isn't set up to handle abatements, so they had to completely rework the support order and we are actually paying less now than the old order, but they are going to add in the arrears so it only adds $65 a month which since we pay weekly isn't bad and then i can always pay extra when we can afford it and get it to end early (SD is 16) and we want it to end when she turns 18.

Then onto what we were suing her about...her attorney saw what he had and told her to behave and agree to everything we asked.  So we get the entire Christmas this year to make up for the visit she refused last year.  The airports changed too somewhat, in general the court ordered airports stay the same, BUT if a flight doesn't exist like what happened at Christmas, WE choose the airport on our end, but then the flight must originate from Austin and as SD is 16 she is no longer required to fly unaccompanied or non-stop, which will help LOTS.  Also if ex pulls her stunts again, she has been told and it is part of the new order that she WILL be held in contempt, she WILL be fined and there will be the possibility that she will be confined.  She will also be required to bond every flight from then on.  She is required to follow the notification dates of the original order and if a "military problem" arises then she has to notify us.

Unfortunately, we didn't get recompensed for all the costs we lost out on, between the 2 tickets we lost and all the extra travel, she doesnt' have to pay that back, which sucks, but we got the more important stuff done, and we don't have to pay her attorney fees like she was expecting.  So hopefully this was a wake up call, things got a lot stricter for her and she is to be held accountable.  The judge signed off on it all that afternoon.

[awakenlynn]

SD had a soccer game yesterday that got cancelled today.  Apparently in court SD texted her mother to let her know the game time.  Ex then told my DH that the game was at 9am and they would be home about 1-3pm.  Found out when SD just called ex lied in court and the game was actually at 2pm and now they won't be home until about 8pm.  DH has been to the school 2 times now when pick up was supposed to be.

DH is furious.  Ex lied to him in the court about the times and SD lied about the times too knowing full well the game times.  On one hand I understand SD's position, she has to live with her mother and deal with her 24/7, but on the other hand she had plenty of time to call or text dad while on the bus and away from mother to let him know the corrected times.  But overall, it has ex written all over it.  DH tried to bend over backward for ex and SD on this visit...he was going to pick SD up today so she could go to her game yesterday, that got cancelled so she was going to go to her girlfriend's birthday party so he was going to pick her up at the hotel this morning instead of the meeting point, then he is lied to about when SD is getting home from her soccer game and instead of getting SD at 11, then at about 1pm, it won't be until 8pm and he has lost a whole day.  If he had known about the changes he would have been able to follow the bus and at least gotten to interact here and there and had dinner with her and the team.

DH is contacting the attorney again on monday.

Just needed to vent.  Thanks

[blndchk1]

Edited by SPARC Admin

<comments removed>

These kinds of comments have no use in this forum and have been removed.

Debate and argument, even very, very spirited argument is welcome. We do, however, ask that you keep it civil and refrain from personal attacks.

[blndchk1]

Edited by SPARC moderator

<comments removed>

Debate is welcomed here.  Name calling is not.