Ohio Recent Legal Answers from Lawyers

File a simple motion with the Court asking for permission to relocate. The court will set a hearing on this and you will have to convince the court that relocating is in the best interest of the children. This will likely also require a modification in the parenting plan set by the court. ... Read Answer

Unfortunately the first question that we have to ask is "is your ex collectable"? By that, I mean does he have any money or the prospect of future money to compensate you. This can sometimes be answered if there is any kind of insurance that he has, typically homeowner's insurance, that might cover assault if you were to bring a claim. If he doesn't have assets or insurance that would cover this, there is really no point in bringing a civil claim and you shold proceed with a criminal complaint.... Read Answer

If you don't think there will be a fight about anything, you can just allow him to go live with his grandfather without any kind of court action. If you want to be formal about it, you will need a petition for custody filed by the grandfather with a signed consent by you. The Court will need to notify the biological parents and will likely hold at least one hearing. So long as all parties are in agreement, you should be able to do with with an agreed judgment entry signed by yourself and the grandfather.    ... Read Answer

This will depend on whether the trust is revocable, irrevocable, and whether your spouse is the grantor. If the trust is an irrevocable trust, then the beneficiary designations remain the same and the house remains property of the Trust.    You may have to seek to have the trust dissolved as part of the divorce in order to obtain any of the assets in it. This will be a difficult fight to convince the court that the Trust property should be considered marital property, as frequently it is placed in trust in order to avoid the property being considered marital property.... Read Answer

To marshal all liens and foreclose on them (the long way to say foreclosure) anyone with a possible interest in the property has to be a named party. This means that the foreclosing party (usually a bank) will name absolutely everyone who could potentially have some kind of claim. Unless they are seeking specific damages from you or your spouse or are claiming that you owe them on the note or mortgage, this can be safely ignored.... Read Answer

Because it is a used car, Ohio's lemon law does not apply. That doesn't mean you're out of luck though. It is possible that they breached Ohio's Consumer Sales Practices Act (CSPA) by misrepresenting to you the cause of the oil leak when they knew that they had patched it earlier. If that's the case, you could recover your actual damages times three plus your reasonably incurred attorney fees.    ... Read Answer

Alimony, called spousal support in Ohio, is a fact-specific analysis with many factors determining whether you will get support. The factors are under 3105.18 (http://codes.ohio.gov/orc/3105.18). Infidelity and abuse aren't speficially listed, but frequently are determined under point "n" under the statute. The biggest difficultly may likely be the lack of income on either side justifying an order of support.  ... Read Answer

If there is an OPERS pension then you should have received a Division of Property Order (DPO). You should be contacting OPERS directly and not bothering with either your ex-spouse or his lawyer to find out why they aren't making distributions. If they say that there is no DPO then someone (probably your husband's attorney) needs to file one. If there IS one, then OPERS does owe you from back in June.... Read Answer

A divorce will seperate and allocate debts, but that's only enforceable within the divorce court. To the cell phone provider, they do not care who is married or divorced. If the phone is SOLELY in his name, then he will SOLELY be required to pay for it as far as the cell phone provider is concerned.   As divorce court would also be unlikely to give you cell phone debt that he racked up under his own name, especially on these facts. Due to the fact that he is incarcerated, you will likely need to file for an uncontested divorce. These can be tricky, but many courts provide for forms that can be used to get you started.... Read Answer

Anyone can apply to be appointed administrator (no will) or executor (with a will) for any probate estate. If that application is contested, the Court will hold a hearing to determine who the best person is to administer the estate. You don't have to wait for anyone's permission to file the application.   On the other hand, if ALL you're looking for is to claim life insurance policies, then you may not need to open an estate at all. Contact the life insurance companies and report his death, then comply with their requests for information. All they should need is a death certificate and some of their forms filled out and they will start making distributions to the named beneficiaries. ... Read Answer

One of the things you can do is bring this to the Court's attention before he does. If he is filing police reports you can assume that he intends to use those reports in your custody dispute. Turn that around on him. Bring the reports to the court's attention especially if they are numerous and frivilous. Courts are familiar with this kind of gamesmanship.... Read Answer

It depends how the initial contract was structured. In Ohio, a minor CAN take title to a car with a guardian's sign-off. R.C. 4505.031 (http://codes.ohio.gov/orc/4505.031). It sounds like that's not what happened here. It sounds like your mom bought a car and let you use it so long as you made regular payments on the note.    This is going to come down to not whether you are a minor but whether you are actually on the contract/title. If the answer is no, then that was never your car to begin with.... Read Answer

Typically a creditor can't "claw back" spent funds and is limited to collecting whatever the debtor has once they've successfully sued them. The only exception to this is any kind of fraudulent transfer in which a debtor spends funds or transfers funds with the express intention of avoiding creditors. Unless you are spending it for the express purpose of avoiding it being garnished, you should be fine in spending the money however you feel like.... Read Answer

Generally speaking Ohio's stay at home order says that you cannot use the threat of coronavirus as an excuse to avoid parenting time. That said, if you have a high risk child and a doctor's note saying that she shouldn't be moved, it is extremely unlikely that a court would find you in contempt for refusing to allow her to see her father. READ THE DOCTOR'S NOTE CAREFULLY BEFORE ACTING ON THIS. Does it actually say "should not be moved" or does it say something else?   I'm curious as to what paperwork you wanted to file. If the father is not challenging your actions then there shouldn't be any need for paperwork. Has he already filed a motion against you? If so you will need to oppose it. ... Read Answer

Unlikely. The only thing you can do is dispute the information with the credit bureaus. The will conduct an investigation and mark the missing payment as "disputed" at the very least. If they don't, then you will have a cause of action against them that you could leverage to have the trade line removed entirely.... Read Answer

Unlikely. Because you broke up and then got back together again (as opposed to just breaking up and then later getting around to a divorce) the court will likely consider the the LLC to be marital property, including the house that's in it. You can certainly ask him to leave, and he may, but you don't have a strong legal argument to force him out. If you wanted to do that, you would need to file for divorce and move for an order for him to vacate the property so that you have exclusive use of the property.... Read Answer

Your best bet is to deposit your rent with the court until the landlord makes the necessary repairs. Under Ohio law, you cannot withhold rent for defects, but you CAN put them on notice (which you did) of the defect and give them thirty days to repair it. If they don't repair it within that time period, you can deposit your rent monthly to the courts rather to the landlord. The landlord then has to petition the court to retrieve teh money with proof that they actually remedied the issue. The court can also withold some of the money for breaching your right to quiet enjoyment of the premises due to the water leak from teh upstairse bathroom.... Read Answer

Unfortunately you are allowed to write whatever testimony you want for people. Whether the person will actually testify to that is a completely seperate matter. If your mother is an attorney, my speculation is that what she is having your sister sign and execute is actually an affidavit, which is a sworn statement. These statements can be used to support procedural maneuvers like motions for summary judgment or, more likely because you mentioned adoption, as supporting documents to the probate judge to allow for full adoption.   It is HIGHLY unusual for a parent to lose custody to another family member. I can count on one hand the times that I've seen it happen (and one in which I represented the aunt and uncle in successfuly getting custody). The number one reason for a non-parent succeeding is that the other side just gives up.... Read Answer

Assuming they were serious, it is a direct and unwaivable conflict of interest to seek employment with a lawyer that you are litigating against. She should absolutely find new representation if she things there is even a chance that the attorney is attempting to go work with the other side.... Read Answer

While it is true that having money to pay for legal representation helps immeasurably in a custody case, there is simply no way that a judge said that he's going to win because he has more money. You do not pay the judge as part of a custody dispute. The court uses a "best interests of the child" analysis to determine custodial rights and parenting time. While money can play a part in that, as it allows for things like food, clothing, and shelter, it's just one of many factors that a court looks into when determining custody.    So will they win because they have money for lawyers? Not necessarily, but what a lawyer CAN do is make the case that it is in the best interest of a child to stay with one parent over another better than any lay person.... Read Answer