Freeze on Joint Accounts?

pk2at · 2025-04-23T20:11:26+00:00

Has the divorce petition been filed? Typically the first step is the judge ordering a temporary financial restraint order. Prior to that order, cashing out, not listing the cash in financial disclosures and keeping it under your mattress makes it de-facto separate property in 9 out of 10 cases.

Brilliant_Ad5830 · 2025-04-23T18:29:55+00:00

I'm in CA. Marital finances stop on date of separation. If she ran up credit cards, it just would have come out of her portion of the home equity. No fuss. Luckily, we didn't have to put it to the test.

Closing long standing credit cards will drop FICO on credit history and average account length. I think the effect is relatively minor. But a divorce is a credit low point for most. You may need every point you can get. (Mine went from 820 to 650 with absolutely no missed payments.) You may need a decent score for say, a rental.

She cleaned out the main bank account. We had a lot of other accounts. She had her "Starbucks" account. Yep, that definitely played into the divorce. We had college accounts for the kids. All sorts of stuff. All of those got emptied and divided by two but not closed. The psycho wouldn't cooperate on anything. I'm still cleaning it up slowly and steadily two years later. Most are dormant. And it takes my CUs forever to process them. It's an hour trip for each one. I think I have three left.

Retirement was all QDRO.

Do a credit freeze for sure. Create a Credit Karma account if you haven't. You can also pull a soft report on all three bureaus if you want just to have a record. But that might ding your score in some very minor way.

Maseworld · 2025-04-23T17:02:42+00:00

I took myself off the account. The joint account dissolved to nothing.

Sam_N_Emmy · 2025-04-23T16:52:36+00:00

Did freeze but any money that came out of joint accounts could only be used for already existing debt, bills, or childcare. Receipts had to be provided for anything that came out of it.

We each opened separate accounts once that decision was made and each transferred our half to pay the bills.

My bank did alert me to fraudulent activity when she tried to access my new account and the children’s savings.

All credit cards were required to be surrendered and zero balance accounts closed as well.

CaptJaxParo · 2025-04-23T16:24:35+00:00

My W had access to our joint checking account she cleared it out to the tune of almost $20,000 wiping it clean. Then of course I couldn't pay child support the next month or several months afterwards and they took me to court. The funds that she took were eventually ruled as future child support. She was very pissed and wants to petition that order and take me back to court again stating that I didn't directly pay her child support. Which is true she took it out for herself

In hindsight when you give people enough rope to hang themselves with they will so it made her look very disingenuous and not much of a victim to the judge

On the other hand I would like to be able to manage my money and not be tracked and stalked by her. That being said I would recommend everybody open up a separate checking account and separate credit card account as soon as you think you might be getting divorced to separate finances early on while it is still community property at least they won't have access to it to bleed you dry.

Like the other poster, all debt and Texas's community that so all of our legal battles and credit card debt is shared by her

jimsmythee · 2025-04-23T16:14:00+00:00

My exwife was (and still is) notorious for overdrawing the checking accounts. While married, were fresh out of bankruptcy court due to her frivolous retail therapy. So we didn't have to worry about credit cards.

So when I split with her, I already had my credit union acct that her name wasn't on. But we had a joint BofA acct. I dragged her sorry ass down to the bank to have my name withdrawn from that acct.

Spoiler alert -- I had a safety deposit box with that bank, but a different location. It had my mother's and my deceased grandmother's gold jewelry in there. Her name wasn't on the box because I set it up before we met. She was convinced she was entitled to half of everything in that box. The next day she and her dad went down to that other branch to get access to the box, but the bank said "no, you don't have a key and you aren't authorized to get access into that box."

So I went to the other branch, closed out the box. She told her divorce atty about it, but he told her, "It's all pre-marital stuff" and she had to let it go. She's still salty about that.

pmbrenner91 · 2025-04-23T15:59:43+00:00

i should have just frozen the accounts

instead, i maxed them out

freeze them, the consequences from my perspective are so minor that likely nobody will care

Title	Freeze on Joint Accounts?
Author	Intelligent_Poem9546
Upvotes	6
Comments	10
Date	April 23, 2025 3:54 PM UTC (1 year ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/Divorce_Men
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/Divorce_Men/comments/1k62ogi/freeze_on_joint_accounts/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/Divorce_Men/freeze-on-joint-accounts.1550409 https://theredarchive.com/post/1550409

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