Mycroft69,

Sorry to hear about your sitch. I know how little control you feel right now but things will get better. I have only read a few of the last posts and will read the entire thread here shortly but wanted to run some thoughts.

I'll try to stick to the business end of what's going on and this is not legal advice, by no means...

Vermont is an equitable divison of property state, like my state. Of course the courts have discretion of what is equitable..could be 50/50 or something else. Add up the assets, subtract the debts, split the difference. I can't find anything right now (and will look more later) with regards to Vermont but in SD, the courts do not distinguish the marital assets or debts by whom the accounts are registered to. The only distinguishment is with inherited or pre-marriage property. So in my sitch, my wife and I split everything that is in her name, my name and our name. Debts and assets. If you can find a free lawyer to talk with you can find out more about Vermont or you can search the codified law of Vermont if they have it online and try to make sense of it yourself. Found a link:

http://www.vermontjudiciary.org/courts/family/domestic.htm

I am not sure what you and your wife are currently paying monthly with your $28,000 grand in debt but if you have been with a bank for a number of years, you might want to go talk with them to see if you can't get some type of unsecured/secured line of credit or installment loan to consolidate it into one debt with one payment. That should work out to approx $615/month based upon 28k in principal, 5 year term and a 10% rate. Would that free up cash flow? Also, it will depend on your credit etc...and not sure what implications the sitch will have on this. Just something to think about.

With regards to transportation to work, is there anybody in your town that works near where you do? It might be an inconvenience short-term but would be far better than the alternative provided you can't get your car. Do you have the option to work from home or switch to the 9 day schedule the govt has?

More to come as I read up on what's going on.

Chris

Me 34
W 33
D 4
S 2
M 5
T 8
Bomb 6/17/08
Served 7/17/08
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