I posted this in "other law", now I think I would probably get a quicker answer over here. My apologies for 2 posts...


Hi all...

I hope someone can help me.

Back story...

My fiance's divorce was final on 2-4-08. The judge ordered him to pay spousal support of $535/mo to his ex. The judge ordered the ex to take the joint vehicle and make payments on them (which are $555/mo plus insurance, upkeep, etc). The vehicle is in my fiance's name. My fiancé was to start making payments to her on 3-24-08 according to the judge.

In court, the ex wanted my fiancé to take the vehicle, but he could not afford to pay both her and for the vehicle. It has been very poorly maintained and we would be lucky if we could get book value for it at this time.

Due to 2 inept lawyers, the decree was not received by my fiancé until 3-27-08. Apparently the ex's attorney filed the original decree and the wording in it was backwards (ie: she was to be paying my ex the support). A nunc pro tunc had to be filed to the court. Because he could not get a copy of the order, and because his name was on the car, he made another payment on the car in lieu of paying her.

When he finally received the order, both lawyers had the wrong payment date on the order. - 2-24-08.

Because of how long it took for him to get the order, he was instantly in arrears of for 2 months. He is now being told by the county, that he is very close to being garnished.

To add insult to injury, his ex is refusing to make the vehicle payment... she says she can not afford it (although he has been paying it for her for 2 years - it's nearly a wash). She offered to let him have the vehicle, but again, we would be out $$ since it's most likely upside down.

What fiancé wants to do, is to get the judge to:
a.) order that the original date was indeed 3-24-08
b.) apply the first car payment to his obligation
c.) she keeps the car, but he pays Ford in lieu of paying her for the next 14 months.

We wanted my fiance's attorney to fix this issue that he should have fixed *before* but he refuse without more money. We felt like we'd already paid him once to do the job, why should we pay MORE to fix something he didn't do correctly the first time.

Fiancé emailed the judges administrative assistant and she got a court date set for June 6. Fiancé will be representing himself. This is the state of Kansas by the way.

The judge has requested he submit his case in "pleading format" which I found on the internet at: http://www.kscourts.org/pdf/60-268basicplding.pdf

This is where I need someone's help. I "get" to play lawyer here, and fill this out for him, but I'm not a lawyer so I'm having a tough time with it. I'm not sure of the proper wording I should use. Should I just write it similar to how I have hear? (leaving out the insults of course :rolleyes: )

I've also filled out (and think I've done a good job) on a modification without DRA. Do I need both this AND the Pleading format document?

I'm lost! We can't afford to pay for another attorney!

Your boyfriend should have some of the pleadings that his attorney filed on his behalf to use as samples for you to glean from. If his attorney did not send him any pleadings you can go to the clerk's office and look at the court file and have the clerk make copies of these pleadings for you at 25 cents a page. Be sure that the clerk's office gets your original, a copy for the judge, and a copy for the other attorney mailed to him. Do this as soon as possible then all your paperwork is in the court file in a timely fashion letting the other attorney file whatever paperwork or pleadings he has to file in rebuttal in a timely fashion as well. Just set out the facts of what your boyfriend wants and why. Just the facts, as Sgt. Joe Friday used to say.