Ohio Recent Legal Answers from Lawyers

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 More

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 More

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 More

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 More

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 More

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 More

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 More

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 More

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 More

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 More

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 More

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 More

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 More

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 More

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 More

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 More

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 More

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 More

This is a very unusual situation. You have a discharged note that is giving you no credit for making payments on it but have been doing that for ten years. I speculation (I know, we shouldn't do that) is that the note was reaffirmed at some point, otherwise you would have a cause of action against the bank for unjust enrichment for accepting payments on a voided note.    I would contact your servicer and see if you can get credit for your payments over the past ten years.They may be able to report these timely payments to teh three credit bureaus, which will substantially increase your score.   Failing that, if this truly is not showing up on your credit report, which I think has a low liklihood, then there is nothing stopping you from applying for an additional mortgage as the currrent note no longer exists.... Read More

To answer this we need to know where the children are living. Divorce and child support are strange in that the jurisdiction of the divorce only requires a parent to live in a state or a county, but that is seperate jurisdiction from jurisdiction over teh children. If the children are staying with you in CA the majority of the time, it is likely that not only do CA courts have jurisdiction over the custody order, but that presumptively the court will want the children to stay in CA.   Let me know if I'm misunderstanding the facts here, but it sounds likely that you could simply file in California and move for custody there.... Read More

Because you are the presumptive father (you signed the birth certificate) you do not need to wait for child support in order to establish visitation. Instead, petition the court for an order for custody and to establishparental rights and responsibilities. If there is a risk of danger to your child from the boyfriend, you may also be able to move for a temporary custody order and support order. Based on his convictions alone most courts would award this. You may also need to move to have a guardian ad litem appointed due to the risk of danger to the child if they stay with the mother.... Read More