As part of our divorce settlement my ex-husband held a second mortgage on our house for the amount of equity earned during the marriage. The mortgage became due in October 2007. As I was solely supporting two kids in college he told me "don't worry about paying me back right now we will settle later". Our relationship was amicable at the time so I had no reason to doubt his words. Six month later he moved away and I hadn't heard from him in almost a year when out of the blue I get a demand for payment including punative interest for almost 18% on $32,000. He refused to accept the actual amount I felt I owed him, based on his words, and he filed for foreclosure on the house.

We reached a settlement in mediation in June and the satisfaction of mortgage was filed in July. However, the case dismissed paperwork has yet to be filed closing the foreclosure case. What is the legal timeframe or reasonable expected timeframe for his lawyer to file this paperwork.

My lawyer seems content with calling my ex's lawyer every couple of weeks inquiring why the paperwork hasn't been filed to the tune of around $75 bucks a call. He finally sent a written notice this week inquiring about the delay in filing. My lawyer is being vague about the legalities on a filing timeline. I live in a small community and I am afraid my lawyer hesitant to start a fight with this other lawyer. In the meantime I have a legal bill adding up.

I know this is going to sound nieve but when you hire a lawyer to represent you legally you certainly expect the case to be handled in your best interests and in professionally.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated before I have to hire an out of town attorney to force the closing of this case and possible professional misconduct against my own lawyer for failing to properly handle my case.

Cheryl

Ask your attorney if there are any statutory guidelines for completion of the paperwork. Ask for the specific statutes to support his answer.

Also tell your attorney that if you are required to pay anymore for him to follow-up on your ex's recalcitrant attorney, you will expect him to file suit to reimburse you for those legal costs.

Ask your attorney if there are any statutory guidelines for completion of the paperwork. Ask for the specific statutes to support his answer.

Also tell your attorney that if you are required to pay anymore for him to followup on your ex's recalcitrant attorney, you will expect him to file suit to reimburse you for those legal costs.

Thanks for the quick reply Scott. I will ask this specific question about statutory guidelines. I am pretty convinced my lawyer will tell me to seek other legal counsel if I wish to sue my ex's lawyer. We live in a small community and he exemplifies a good ole country lawyer. Preferring to keep good working relations with his peers than sue one. The ex's lawyer however, strikes me as the type who would do anything to earn a buck. He maybe stringing this out to run my ex's legal bill up. I don't know as we do not communicate.

Scott, going to check out your blog as I also program in Access but not at the expert level so there is always something new to learn.

Again Thanks
Cheryl