Husband Withholding Money During Divorce: Overcoming Financial Difficulties When Divorcing
TL;DR of How to Divorce Spouse Who Makes the Money
- Financial Control in Divorce: If your spouse controls all the income and finances, you may need a court order to enforce your right to half of the income, but this can take up to 90 days.
- Surviving Financially Without Money: If money is withheld, create a budget for essential expenses and consider using credit to hire an attorney, while finding alternative income sources.
- Staying in the Home: If there’s no violence, stay in the home to avoid unnecessary rent or utility costs, as your spouse cannot evict you without court permission.
- Temporary Orders and Legal Action: Filing for divorce with a motion for temporary orders can help ensure your spouse continues paying essential bills until a court decision is made, typically within 90 days.
How Do You Divorce a Spouse Who Makes All The Money?
How do you divorce a spouse who makes all the money, controls the bank accounts, and controls the credit cards? It’s not easy because you will need money to hire an attorney, and money to pay bills until you get a court date. This leads to the obvious question, can your husband or wife legally withhold money from you?
Choosing to divorce a spouse who has financial control over all the income can be a daunting and stressful situation. You need access to income to manage essential expenses like hiring an attorney, buying food, and paying utilities. In Nevada, as a community property state, you have legal rights to half of the income earned during the marriage. However, if your spouse restricts access to their paycheck, you may need to obtain a legal order enforcing financial control to protect your rights. Obtaining such a court order can take up to 90 days, during which you might face significant financial challenges.
This scenario is common and often requires careful financial planning alongside legal action. While the law clearly states that half of the income belongs to you, enforcing this legal right can be complex if your spouse chooses to disregard it and withhold financial support. During the separation period, budgets and asset management become critical to survive the temporary loss of income. Legal enforcement mechanisms such as freezing accounts or obtaining binding financial control orders may be necessary, but these processes take time. The 90-day wait for judicial intervention can feel like an extended period of financial uncertainty and hardship.
How Can I Fight My Divorce With No Money?
Sometimes you have no choice, and you must wing it when your wife or husband takes away access to money. You can hire an attorney with a credit card and hang on for 90 days. If you don’t need to wing it, then you should prepare “financially”. Here are some tips.
Stay in the Home
Don’t leave the home unless you need to because of violence. No need to spend money on rent, deposits, or utilities. Your spouse is not likely to stop paying the mortgage of the utilities of a home they live in. And, your spouse cannot evict you from the home after you file the divorce. Under Nevada law a spouse cannot evict their spouse without court permission. Even if the home is titled in their name. So, if there is no concern for physical danger then stay in the home.
Create a Budget
How much money do you need each month? How much are your essential monthly bills? Create a spreadsheet. Tally up how much you would need, if you spouse cuts off the income. Your spouse will likely pay the mortgage, or utilities. So, your typical expenses are food, cell phone, car insurance, etc. Your expenses should be those items a spouse cannot or would not stop paying. Add up all these expenses.
Make sure to add in money for your attorney. You will likely need an attorney to file the divorce, and to request the court to force your spouse to keep paying the bills.
Finding Income
Once you have the budget, you now know how much you need to gather to weather the divorce storm. You know how much you need to not be affected by your spouse cutting of the income stream. With this number you can start looking for sources of income to help with the budge. You look for work or additional part time income. You can ask friends or family. You can save money. You can ask your divorce attorney about taking possession of a savings account or retirement account that you have access to. There are ways to gather savings.
Motion for Temporary Orders
With a budget and a plan for dealing with the income shortfall you can start the divorce process. An attorney will file the divorce documents, which gives your spouse three weeks to respond. One of these documents is a Joint Preliminary Injunction (JPI). This document makes it a violation of a court order for your spouse to not continue with the status quo. Paying the regular and ordinary bills is status quo. By cutting you off financially your spouse has now violated this JPI.
Your will attorney will also file a motion for temporary orders. This is a motion where you request the judge to make a temporary decision. Typical requests are for continuing income payments, setting temporary support, deciding if someone needs to move out of the home, and deciding a temporary custody schedule. The temporary orders hearing is the hearing that is scheduled about 90 days out.
After this temporary motion hearing there is no worries about income. The judge will explain to your spouse that their income is your income too. Many times, this is all that is need to start settling the divorce.
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