What happens with debt after people part ways and get divorced? One of the most common questions I get on this subject is what happens to debt that’s jointly titled after the divorce. Now, something to be very clear on is when it comes to jointly titled debt, the court can require for example, one person to be responsible for a certain credit card or payment on a vehicle or anything of that sort. Any kind of loan, a court can order one person to be responsible for that debt. Just because the court can order one person responsible for that debt doesn’t necessarily mean that the person is going to keep paying on the debt.
What Happens When a Spouse Doesn’t Pay on The Debt They Were Responsible For?
We had talked before a little bit about contempt of court and that’s your remedy in the event that the other person doesn’t pay on the debt pursuant to a divorce order. If your former spouse is ordered to make a credit card payment and they don’t pay on it, what happens then is that you can take them to court for what’s called contempt of court. However, that’s not going to solve all of your problems. Since your credit’s going to get dinged, it’s important to handle the matter as soon as possible. It’s very important that you take into account which spouse is responsible for what debts in a case of a divorce. You really need to think about these things if you are trying to come to an agreement with the other spouse.
If you come to an agreement, you need to make sure that, number one, you need to know if you are going to have the other person responsible for a joint debt or even a debt solely in one of your names. You also need to understand the possibility that it could come back to haunt you. Now, that doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s the worst thing in the world for you to have that person responsible for that debt. You just need to understand what the risks are. A court, especially in particular a family court in West Virginia, cannot take debt out of one person’s name and put it in the other. Now, one thing that people do a lot when it comes to this type of debt is refinance and the court may say it has to be done within a certain amount of time. That’s something that’s common in a divorce order.
Whether it’s the house, the home mortgage, a car or something else, it could be in the order that the person has to make a reasonable effort to refinance the debt within a certain amount of time. You really need to take that into account when you’re talking with the other spouse. Now that you know the family court in West Virginia is not going to be able to transfer debt from one of the spouse’s name to another. It’s something you really need to think about when you’re trying to come up with an agreement or when you’re presenting your case to the judge. These are some of the things to consider and think about when it comes to West Virginia divorced and the debt between spouses.
