who owns and is responsible for the truck? My husband's ex girlfriend signed a loan for him to purchase a vehicle before we got married. Since then, he has continued paying on the vehicle the entire time we have been married. He is now in jail. Do I have the rights to the vehicle. Should I be making the payments? Or does she still legally own the vehicle and is held responsible? (My husband and I have been married for 4 years in which he has been the one making the payments.) Also, due to him being in jail, if we proceed with a divorce, will the truck be an asset in the divorce hearing?
Whoever signed the loan owes the money to the bank for the truck. So, in this case it is probably both your husband and his ex girlfriend. Whoever is listed on the title of the vehicle as the registered owner has the full exclusive use of the vehicle. That is probably your husband. Any person who co-signed for a loan owns nothing and has rights to nothing. Co-signing a loan just means that the signer agrees to pay off the loan. In this case the girlfriend does not, nor has ever owned the vehicle. If payments are not made on the vehicle, the owner of the loan (probably a bank) will repossess the vehicle and take ownership of it. At that point they will become the registered owner. Your main options are: Refinance the car. You take your own loan and buy out your husband and his girlfriend. Both of them and the bank would have to agree to this. You would become the registered owner of the car. Make a set-off agreement. In this case, you offer your husband a deal: you will make the payments on the car, if you get the use of the car and a percentage of the sale price in the event the car is sold. Try to get a judge to award you the car in the divorce. In this scenario, the judge would order that you become the registered owner of the car, but the girlfriend and your husband would still be responsible for paying the loan. The risk here is that both will default on the loan and the car will get repossessed.
From a legal perspective co-signing a loan isn't the same thing loaning the money to the other co-signer. When you co-sign a loan with someone else both you and the other person are equal parties in the loan, both jointly responsible in fully paying off the principle and interest. If loan is defaulted on, the bank can pursue legal remedies to try to recover its money against either or both of you. If you end up having to pay part or all of the loan, then whether or not you can recover any of that money will depend on whatever agreement you made with the other person. Given that you probably wouldn't a have a signed written agreement with the other signer in case like this, it'll probably come down to whether or not you can prove (on the balance of probabilities) that the other party promised to you to pay off the full amount of the loan. It will help if the loan is specifically tied to a car, a house or other property that the other party benefits from but you don't. Note that you'd have to give serious consideration to whether the other party can actually pay the amount owed. There's no point going to court to obtain an unenforceable judgement. I also should say that from a financial perspective it does make some sense to think of it as if you were loaning out the money yourself. While there's a big and significant difference between the two, in that your bank account isn't affected unless the other person defaults, if they do the result is going to be pretty much the same. Indeed in that case it's not much different than just giving the other person the money. When co-signing a loan you really need to trust that other person.
Yes, the police can give you a ticket for not having insurance/registration in the vehicle, even if they know it is registered/insured. The requirement is not just that you must have it, but you must carry proof of it in the vehicle. California Law (CVC §16058) requires that insurance companies electronically report insurance information to the DMV, which the officer has access to and can verify insurance. From the California DMV Page: Financial responsibility (commonly known as insurance) is required on all vehicles operated or parked on California roadways. You must carry evidence of financial responsibility in your vehicle at all times and it must be provided as specified below when: Requested by law enforcement. Renewing vehicle registration. The vehicle is involved in a traffic collision. The reason it must be in your vehicle is that when you are involved in a collision, you have to be able to provide that to the other party. And yes, you can receive the citation even if the vehicle is not yours. It is your responsibility as a driver to abide by the laws and verify that the vehicle is legal to drive. California Vehicle Code (CVC) §4000(a)(1) requires registration: A person shall not drive, move, or leave standing upon a highway, or in an offstreet public parking facility, any motor vehicle, trailer, semitrailer, pole or pipe dolly, or logging dolly, unless it is registered and the appropriate fees have been paid under this code or registered under the permanent trailer identification program, except that an off-highway motor vehicle which displays an identification plate or device issued by the department pursuant to Section 38010 may be driven, moved, or left standing in an offstreet public parking facility without being registered or paying registration fees. I'm not advocating that you should just "suck it up and pay" this ticket. I would certainly bring proof of registration/insurance at the time of the ticket to your court date and provide that you are not the registered owner of the vehicle (you don't say, but I assume you were borrowing a friends vehicle). The court should look at that evidence and issue a warning or dismiss the ticket.
I assume that the loan was legal, in light of rule changes pertaining to non-borrowing spouses. If so, there is really no recourse other than to repay the loan. This article explains the current options / restrictions in an understandable manner, but of course it is too late to do anything about it. If there was actually fraud or coercion in the loan, or if the elder party was mentally incompetent, there might be some legal recourse, but we don't have any evidence of fraud, coercion or incompetence here.
You are not legally responsible for your spouse’s acts or omissions. However, in most jurisdictions most assets of a married couple are legally jointly held which means any judgement against your spouse exposes the jointly held assets.
If the owner of the intellectual property leaves property subject to the jurisdiction of the state of Washington, and it is determined that the owner is dead and has no heirs, then per RCW 11.08.140 it is designated escheat property. Then the following sections specify that title to the property vests in the state. The Department of Revenue has jurisdiction over that property, which has the duty to protect and conserve the property for the benefit of the permanent common school fund. There is no general answer to the question of what would best benefit the school fund. Any form of giving it away would not benefit the school fund, at least if there was an viable option for sale / licensing. There are provisions that relate to the possibility that an heir is eventually uncovered, but I will assume that no heir ever appears. Ohio law is similar. The decendant's property escheats to the state in case there is no heir. Then under ORC 2105.07, the prosecuting attorney of the county in which letters of administration are granted upon such estate shall collect and pay it over to the county treasurer. Such estate shall be applied exclusively to the support of the common schools of the county in which collected.
In a typical divorce proceeding, both sides are required to provide a sworn statement of their finances, and to respond to written interrogatories, produce documents (e.g. financial statements made in loan applications, balance sheets, tax returns, bank statements, and copies of deeds and certificates of title and stock certificates) and be deposed in pre-trial discovery proceedings. Divorce lawyers have the authority to subpoena third-party records custodians and to take a small number of depositions of third-party witnesses prior to a permanent orders hearing and can usually get permission to take more if there is evidence suggesting that it would be fruitful to do so. There are a variety of sanctions that may be imposed for failure to cooperate, including adverse inferences regarding the facts that would have been disclosed if there had been disclosures in the discovery process. Still, it behooves a client to know as much as possible before commencing the process, since having lawyers gather this information during the course of divorce litigation is expensive and isn't always perfect. Where misconduct is suspected, a spouse's lawyer will typically retain forensic accountants and/or private investigators and will compare bank and accounting and tax records with other public records such as real property records, corporate records and tax filings. Unless an asset has produced no income or expenses flowing through a personal or business account, it will usually show up somewhere. Spouses will also often have familiarity with where to look based upon living with a spouse and often will have obtained copies of relevant correspondence or documents to provide a lead - perhaps a letter asking a spouse to fill out corporate paperwork or receipt from a foreign bank account. This investigation process (collectively called discovery) usually takes place between the filing for a divorce and the half year or more later when a permanent orders hearing is held. Often, in complex cases and cases where there is a likelihood that assets have been hidden, the final hearing will be set later after the original filing than it would otherwise be, and the planned hearing will be longer in light of the evidence that will need to be produced at that time. In my state, a spouse has up to five years after a divorce to reopen a proceeding is undisclosed assets are discovered. It isn't impossible to hide assets in a divorce, but it isn't easy either.
Rob is responsible. No Bull! Around the world, the law of wandering cattle depends on the details. New Zealand is no different. This case is covered by s 26 of the Impounding Act of 1955, Damages for Trespass. As you said, S 26(1)(d) says Bob is entitled to damages whenever his &quot;land (whether fenced or unfenced) is situated in a city.&quot; This is different to the rest of the country, where animals must be fenced out. S 26(2) of the Impounding Act says the damage is owed by Rob, as the owner of the stock: (2) In any case where damages are payable under this section the amount of any damage shall be recoverable by action from the owner of the stock. It may be that Rob and Alice have some arrangement that Alice will indemnify Rob against any trespass damages. But that agreement does not change the underlying law; it only allows him to recoup his loses (by suing his mother, if necessary!). Added: Something fun to read Law professor Robert Ellickson studied how people actually resolve disputes over wandering cattle in Shasta county in northern California. There's a readable summary of what he found here. (The title of his book, &quot;Order without law,&quot; sums up his main finding -- there are rules that are enforced, but those rules have little to do with the formal law or law enforcement.)