Divorce settlement that prohibits residency in a state I heard a rumor about a divorce case where the husband offered the wife a 25% higher settlement if she would leave the state. She declined. But it got me wondering. Can a valid divorce settlement or other contract provide payment in exchange for not living in a particular state? If payment is made, and the paid party doesn't move out of the state, or moves back, does the paying party have a good case to get back the payment?
A divorce settlement must be approved by the court. A Judge might well refuse to approve a settlement with such a provision in it, although I do not know of any law specifically barring such a term. But once the settlement is final, one party could certainly offer a separate contract to the other, under which one party would agree to remain outside the state (or metropolitan region, or county, or wherever) in return for an agreed recurring payment. There would be no compulsion to accept such a contract, but if the payment offered was large enough, it might be accepted voluntarily. However, if there was a child involved, and such a move would significantly hinder that child's contact with both parents, and this were not in the child's best interest, such a contract might be attacked as against public policy.
We don't want this issue to adversely affect our credit and got legal consulting which suggested we should pay the debt collector to protect our credit score, and then sue the landlord for the money back in small claims court. I'm a little worried about this strategy since it requires to hand away the money first, and am trying to get second opinions. The debt collector is probably either the owner of the claim against you, if it is an assignee of the claim, or an agent of the landlord for purposes of collection. Thus, payment to the debt collector is equivalent to payment of the landlord. The law varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction regarding whether payment constitutes of waiver of a right to sue over the debt. Sometimes it is necessary to designate the payment "under protests" or "reserving all rights", but that is not a uniform rule of law that applies in all jurisdictions, and I do not have the time and familiarity with that state's law to research Massachusetts case law on that point accurately.
Only the currently unmarried may lawfully marry in the US US laws generally prohibit a marriage if either person is currently in a valid marriage to a third person, whether in the US or anywhere else. If a current marriage is valid it must be ended by divorce or in some other lawful way before a valid US marriage can occur. Marrying in the US while already married to another person is the crime of bigamy, and will also render the later marriage invalid and void. All this is true regardless of immigration status, it would be true for citizens, green-card holders, holders of any visa type, and undocumented people. No one may contract a marriage while currently married to someone else. I believe this is true in all US states and territories. Committing the crime of bigamy could possibly have negative impact on the immigration status of a non-citizen, in addition to potential criminal penalties. I am not sure why you would think it might be OK to proceed with such a marriage without first obtaining a divorce, annulment, or other lawful termination of any existing marriage, inside or outside the US, but it is not.
The question does not say what reasons the other party gives for not paying, and so one cannot judge whether such reason is covered by the terms quoted in the question. In general a contract need not be highly specific if the intent is clear. However, any ambiguity will usually be resolved against the party who wrote the contract, so it is in that party's interest to be as clear and specific as possible. It is not clear from the quoted terms that they form a contract at all. No consideration is stated. Contractual provisions which deny all recourse are not always enforceable. They may be overruled by law or regulation, or by prior court decision or by an equitable decision. If there is a serious problem with the service provided, particularly in a consumer transaction, a court might reject a provision denying all refunds even if it is quite specific and clear. The question does not list the jurisdiction (country and, for federal countries, state or province). Laws on contracts and enforceable terms vary significantly in different jurisdictions. Without this a specific answer is not possible.
For clarity, in a divorce case in New York State involving children, the judge typically decides: (1) child custody, (2) child support, (3) alimony, (4) division of the couple's property, and (5) allocation of attorney's fees and costs associated with the case. The judge also terminates the marriage if the jurisdictional requirements for doing so are met. In New York State, there is both no fault divorce and fault based divorce, and in a fault based divorce, the judge decides if fault was present. Divorces are handled by the New York State Supreme Court (not, as one might suspect, by the New York State Family Court), which is a trial court of general jurisdiction in New York State. In a fault based divorce, marital fault is considered with regard to issues of property division and alimony, but not with regard to child custody or child support. If you are married and your wife has a child during the marriage, in New York State, you are presumed to be the father of the child. You can bring a lawsuit to prove that you are not the father of the child, but the deadline for doing so is fairly short after the child is born. After five years this statute of limitations would probably have run. But, it sounds like the infidelity is not alleged to have caused the wife to become pregnant, so that isn't really an issue. The extreme levels you would have gone to in order to spite your spouse and your hostility towards her, make it unlikely that the court would award you full custody or joint custody, although it would be required to award you some parenting time so long as you were legally presumed to be the father. If you are legally considered to be a parent of the child, custody will be allocated in the best interests of the child, and child support will be awarded based primarily on your income, your ex-wife's income, and the number of nights that the child spends with each parent. In all likelihood, you would be awarded little parenting time given your conduct and statements, and full custody would be awarded to the wife who would get child support from you based upon your income. (Assets are rarely considered in child support awards.) If you sign assets over to your brother, the court will probably treat you as if you still owned those assets for purposes of property division upon the divorce. If your assets exceed those of your spouse, the court will probably award all remaining assets to your spouse and require you to pay a property equalization payment to your spouse to make up for your inability to pay a full amount to your pre-transfer share of assets to your spouse. If the transfer to your brother took place after the divorce was commenced, the court would probably also hold you in contempt of court and put you in jail. Your transparent efforts to divest yourself of assets, and your unsubstantiated claim of infidelity would not in any way reduce you alimony obligation to your spouse, if under the facts and circumstances, such as the length of the marriage and the relative economic means of the parties, the court finds that an alimony award is appropriate. Unsubstantiated claims of infidelity will only make the court treat you more harshly. Most New York State divorces are no fault divorces in which infidelity is irrelevant, but New York State does have residual fault based divorces which could count against your ex-wife in a variety of ways (although not with respect to child custody or child support). But this is only if you can prove the infidelity in court. In reference to the linked case in Spain, it is worth noting that a New York State divorce judge has much more power and discretion than a Spanish divorce judge. The New York State divorce judge is allowed to equitably divide the couple's property rather than merely adhering to formulaic community property rules, and the New York State divorce judge has contempt of court power which the Spanish divorce judge lacks.
Can he/lawyer try to use the payment to me as leverage, for example, offer to give me that payment only if I agree to sign a non-compete or other document? The employer ultimately ought to comply with the written agreements between you two. The employer is not allowed to belatedly impose conditions that alter (to your detriment) the contract(s), let alone when you are no longer his employee. The clause "You will be paid on X and Y when/if they close" does not reflect whatsoever that payment is contingent on your acceptance of a non-compete agreement. Your description does not reflect any legal merits that would justify your employer to further withhold the compensation to which you are entitled pursuant to the deal/sale that got closed. The employer and his lawyer are just being vexatious.
It primarily depends on the title that you have to the house: are you &quot;joint tenants with right of survivorship&quot;. This could have happened when you bought the house; it also could have been done after the fact in various ways. In that case, the house is outside of your wife's estate (which, under the circumstances, is divided between children and you). The lender might be confused about the status of the property, but they might be right, so the question is, what is your legal &quot;interest&quot; in the house, that is, does the title document say &quot;tenants in common&quot;? Assuming that the property is not recorded as JTWROS, then there are two matters to attend to. First, the lender may need to be satisfied, somehow, that they aren't taking a risk by refinancing when you aren't really the full owner. The second is clarifying actual ownership. Estates Code 201.0002-.003 govern intestate succession with a surviving spouse, where the dividing question is whether it is a community estate or not, which then implies shares for children. In that case, the children are part-owners, so you need their consent to e.g. sell the house (that is, this is a complication that needs to be fixed). Basically, you have to get a lawyer, and straighten this out.
I just put in for a transfer to another location my company has there and will transfer back to my original location when we move back. I don't believe I should have to go and change my state of residency, drivers license, car registration/plates, insurance etc) since I consider where I am now my permanent home. It's just a temporary relocation. While this arguably works for the common law concept of domicile, as a practical matter, if you live someplace for the majority of a year, and often more than 30 days, you are considered to reside there. You should change your driver's license, car registration/plates, insurance, voter's registration, etc., unless there is an extremely compelling reason to do otherwise, and not just different tax rates and more bureaucratic inconvenience. A planned three year stay doesn't cut it, especially, if you don't own a home or have a residential lease on a residence in the state you want to claim as your residence. The main exceptions would be someone who is in an institutional setting, such as attending college residentially for nine months a year while supported by their parents, in a prison, or in military service, where different conventions sometimes apply. Legally, could I leave everything as is since the apartment &quot;technically?&quot; isn't mine (I'd just be staying there with her? No. Residency and who owns or leases the place where you are living are two entirely different things. The many people who don't have a lease or own a home are still residents of the places where they live. For that matter, even if you are not a citizen of the U.S., you can still be a resident of a particular state or locality. I'd be filing my taxes as someone that commutes out of state to work and residing in their current home state etc. Nope. For state income tax purposes, you reside in the state where you sleep a majority of the nights in a year. There are sometimes more complicated rules that apply to apportion income between states, but that is the strong general rule. Is there anything I'm missing/not aware of that would make this a bad idea? Or is this a normal thing people do commonly and I'm overthinking it. This is a bad idea and not a normal thing that people do commonly. At a minimum, it will leave you with bureaucratic tangles and at risk of serious state tax audits (which, reading between the lines, seems like the most plausible reason you are thinking about this approach). At worst, you could be exposed to liability for having improper tax payments and car insurance in place, and potential criminal liability for misrepresenting your residence. It might not end up coming to a head and being a problem, but the probability that it will is significant.