My stepson lives with his Mom, and she has full custody. Included in the divorce decree, it states that she and my husband are responsible for 50% each of the balance due after insurance pays, and it specifically states that she must carry the insurance on him. Well, the last few times that he's been to the dr. and 2x to the ER, she has had the hospital and dr send the bills directly to us, with my husband listed as the party responsible for paying. I recently found out that my husband has been throwing out the bills, thinking they were just duplicates for his information. I never saw them as he opens his own mail, and I open mine. Months have passed, and now these things are in collection. The CAs have been calling us and sending letters. They leave weird pre-taped messages on our machine. I need something different than a validation letter. I need to point out to these CAs without a doubt that these are NOT my husband's bills. Something rather threatening to make them back off -- and quickly! (By the way, my stepson is a Jr., so there's another flee-wee in the ointment there, methinks. Dunno.) Any ideas???
I feel the need to add, for clarity's sake... The bills that she is sending to us have not had ANY payment made on them. Wouldn't we be setting ourselves up for being responsible for 100% if we make a payment on it? The way the judge explained it to my hb, was that she is supposed to pay the bill, then give him the documentation within a reasonable amount of time so that he can reimburse her the 50% that he's responsible for. (I can't verify that, since I wasn't there. I've never received a dime from my ex for med bills.) Has anyone had experience with this at all? Pretty please? The way it's credit-related is that he doesn't want to have this end up on his CRs... Thanks,
You need to haul her a$$ back in front of the judge, and include having her contact the collections people and taking responsibility off him and onto herself.
Regarding the CA's. Dispute the debt. They can't prove that your husband is responsible for any of the debt. The mom took the kid to the doctor and told them to bill so-and-so. If mom has legal custudy of junior, then she is responsible for the bills. Not dad. I would not bother with the "take her to court" idea. Why? The CA's are going after the wrong party. Go after them. Why is this any different than me going to the hospital and telling them to put it on my ex-wife's bill. Again, dispute the bill. No one can simply bill you for services/products you did not order. If they don't back down, take legal action against the CA's and hospital for harassement. DO NOT PAY THEM A DIME! Pay the ex-wife half as a reimbursement as dictated by the divorce agreement. Eventually the hospital will stop going after your husband go after the mom. One thing I would be wary of. What if mom settles with the CA's/hospital for 50 cents on the dollar. Then bills dad for half the original amount and uses that to pay HER half of the bill as the settlement amount. I guess if I were the dad, and the amount was not that outragous, then I would just pay mom the half and be done with it. I would not want to be part of the ex-wife's financial shinangans. I'd ask my divorce attorney about this. I'm sure he would demand proof of her payment, and then dad would remiburse half as agreed. Or if mom can't come up with the full payment and wait for a reimbursement, the attorney might agree to act as an "escrow" and collect the payments for both mom and dad and then pay the medical bills. That way mom doesn't have to cough up ALL the money up front.
Validation letter will work. If they can't provide an admittance form with his signature, what are they going to do? If the mother is carrying the insurance, she is the guarantor. Offer to pay them half for deletion (his responsibility anyway). If they don't agree, start hammering them with validation letters, estoppel, and suits. Worked for me in a similar situation. Gib
Breeze... Why do you think that is bad advise? Can you elaborate? On what basis would he sue her? What is reason for taking her to court? To me, it is very clear cut and simple. The facts are: (1) She has sole legal custody of the child. (2) Because of #1, she and she alone is responsible for child's expenses. (3) She authorized medical services for the child. (4) Because of #3 and #3, she is responsible for the child's hospital and doctors bills. He is not. (5) Dad is obligated to reimburse mom 50 percent of the kid's medical expenses, as per the divorce agreement. They key word here is REIMBURSE. (6) Mom has not paid any medical expenses. (7) Because of #5 and #6, there are no expenses to be reimbursed at this time by dad. (8) The divorce agreement between mom and dad has no bearing on her financial responsibilty for the child, or for her paying the medicals bills. In other words, she was wrong to tell the providors to bill the father. (9) The medical providers are wrong to accept her word and attempt to collect from dad. The only dragging people to court that can happen are: (a) The creditors dragging mom to court over the unpaid bills. (b) Mom dragging dad to court if he fails to reimburse her as promised. (c) Dad dragging the creditors to court for harassment and violations of FCRA, FDCPA, and other applicaple laws. No where do I see any legal basis for dad dragging mom to court for her failure to pay her bills to other parties. Dad needs to focus on his immediate problem, the misguided creditors. If he fails to act promptly and shut them down NOW, then he will have much larger problems later when they sue, win judgements, and start garnishing his wages and assets. Then later he can work with mom and help her get the kid's medical bills paid, if he feels nice enough too. For example, the creditors at this point might accept a 50% settlement. He may agree to pay that settlement off for her to help out. But he needs to be careful when doing this to be sure he is not exposing himself to risks of affirming her debts, or voiding the divorce agreement.
I'm sorry that I'm replying so late to these helpful posts. Been on a bit of a vacation... Anyhooo.... Thank you all for replying to my post. I have drafted letters to send to the CA and the OCs (so they won't continue to accept her putting my hb down as being the responsible party). We'll see how it goes from there.
I don't mean sue her - I mean he should go back to family court, because she is failing to abide by the terms of divorce agreement. He doesn't have a prayer the way it is going now. Just like when ex-spouses stick each other with the credit card bills - it's time to enforce the family court order, not fight the CA's and CRA's.
The reason for going back to court is because she is in contempt for failure to follow the decree as ordered by the judge. No creditor has to follow what the judge ordered in a divorce decree. The ex may continue this nonsense forever, unless she is brought back into court for contempt. No reason to drag her back into court? How about that she was ordered to maintain insurance for the kid, and obviously hasn't. If she had, the dad wouldn't be getting the bills and ca calls. That in itself, is enough to bring her in for contempt.
