Hello.
I am here live with you.
This is my second live stream ever.
And this is going to be Ask the Attorney Anything, which is a super popular segment that I usually
have at the end of my webinars.
And if you haven't checked out my free webinar on the Three Must Have Secrets to Communicating
With a Narcissist, you should definitely check that out.
And I usually do a Q&A at the end, but most of the time I have more than 100 people, sometimes
a couple hundred people on the live stream, so it's really hard to get to everybody's
questions.
And I'm going to have the same issue today, I could already see before we even got started.
So I'm going to start doing this Ask the Attorney Anything segment every single week, right
here on YouTube.
So set your alarms for noon Pacific time on Tuesday so that if I don't get to your question
today, hopefully I'll get to it next week.
So I'm going to just kind of do a speed dating thing here right now and answer as many questions
as I can.
And I'm just going to sort of take them in order here.
So, Roger is asking, in Georgia, if you get a divorce, is all stuff in marriage split
evenly?
So Roger, I am not an attorney licensed in the state of Georgia, so I'm not exactly 100%
sure.
But I can tell you that all states in general have what we call marital or community property,
and then non-marital or non-community property, depending on the state that you live in.
And in general, I can tell you that marital property, if it's considered to be marital
will be in general split equally.
If you are living in an equitable distribution state, that means equitable, which means fair,
and sometimes there are reasons where they go off of a 50/50 split, such as marital waste,
dissipation, things like that.
So I can't give you a specific answer for Georgia, that's definitely a question for
a lawyer in Georgia.
But in general, marital or community property is split equally, unless there's a reason
for it not to be.
Okay.
So next question is, hi.
If your ex is hiding assets in other states than where you both live, does one have to
hire an attorney in other states to do discovery and subpoenas?
Generally you don't have to hire an attorney.
Again, this is really a very legal question for your particular state.
But in general, you can just send out subpoenas.
You have to file them with your local court to give notice to the other side that you're
going to be sending these out, these third party subpoenas out, so that they have a chance
to object, and then you can send out the subpoenas.
Now, the problem may come if that entity in the other state doesn't comply.
Most of the time they do.
But if they don't comply, then you might have to hire an attorney from another state to
help you enforce the subpoena.
And sometimes you have to have those subpoenas turned into a court order from that particular
state's jurisdiction.
So in general, you can send them out, but they kind of don't necessarily have to comply
with them unless it becomes an order of the court, in which the state is where that entity
is.
So that's kind of a general answer because I'm probably not licensed in the state that
you're in.
But most often what I've seen is your you're doing subpoenas to banks and credit card companies,
and most often they just go ahead and comply, regardless of what the state the subpoena
came from.
And the bottom line is, if you're dealing with subpoenas and divorce, if the other side
is objecting to getting credit card statements and bank statements and things like that,
they're going to have to answer to the judge in the particular jurisdiction that you're
in, because what are you trying to hide?
The judges aren't going to take too kindly to that because they want both sides to be
completely forthcoming so that the judges know how to rule on the case.
They need to figure out what property people have, what debts people have, what kind of
income there is so that they can figure out alimony, support, child support, things like
that.
So, it's kind of a fine line to walk if people are going to be objecting to subpoenas for
things that the courts know that need to be disclosed in order to come to a resolution
of the case.
So that's the kind of long answer on that.
Let's see.
Next is from Susanna.
If loan was named after me, is my husband also accountable?
Again, that's a kind of a state specific answer.
I'm going to give you a general answer, but I'm going to specifically state right here
that I cannot give you legal advice, even though I am a lawyer, but I'm probably not
licensed in your state and you definitely are not my client, we don't have attorney
client privilege going here.
So let me just say, in general, if a loan was created during a marriage and both parties
were benefiting from whatever that loan proceeds was for, say for a house or a car that you
both drove or something, then the court's probably going to take a look at whether or
not both parties should be accountable for that.
If it's something that was a loan that was created where the other party wasn't tuned
in on what was going on and it was used for gambling, drugs, prostitutes, something that
nobody else benefited from except for that person, then an argument may be made in your
state that the other side should not be held accountable for that particular debt.
Okay.
So next, Emily.
What's the best way to continue to keep my narcissistic abuser away from my kids?
As of right now, he has no visitation, but I'm concerned if he ever decides to file.
So Emily, I definitely have videos on this, on how to protect your child from a narcissistic
parent and things like that.
So what I would suggest that you do is check out that video, it'll be much more in depth
than what I can give you as a quick answer here.
But in general, definitely keep documentation of everything, ask for a custody evaluation.
If you think that there's really a problem, if you think that your children are in danger,
then you may want to check with your lawyer or the authorities in your state about potentially
getting some sort of a protective order that protects the children.
Psych evals, things like that.
Definitely therapy for the children, and just making sure that the court is aware of what's
going on at every turn.
So keeping really super detailed documentation, have the notes section open on your phone,
exactly what's been going on, that sort of thing.
So if he has no visitation now, more than likely there's going to be maybe some sort
of a step up plan, like supervised time sharing first, and then if everything is satisfied
with the supervised time sharing, then maybe they graduate to dinner once a week that's
not supervised or a couple of hours on a Saturday morning that's not supervised.
No overnights right away.
And then if that goes well, then maybe they graduate to having one overnight a week.
Normally they don't literally go from no time sharing at all, all the way to a 50/50.
I mean, that very rarely happens because it's kind of shocking for the kids too, to figure
out what's going on with all of that.
So, okay.
Next.
I'm going to keep on going for a couple of more minutes here.
Let's see.
What's the next question?
I see somebody from North Carolina.
I love to see where you guys are calling in from.
So let me know where you all are calling in from.
This is super cool.
So let's see.
I just want to go back and see what the next question is.
Inheritance.
Only child put over everything at hospitals.
Step siblings, because friends with funeral is still my inheritance.
That's more of an estate planning question.
I mean, it's something to put to a wills and trusts lawyer, not necessarily me.
I don't really get into inheritances, unless it was some kind of inheritance that somebody
received during the marriage and they kept it separate or they commingled it or something
like that.
So I'm not sure that I'm qualified to answer your question, Brandy, but definitely talk
to an attorney in your state who deals with that sort of thing.
Let's see.
Next one, I hid a large sum of cash.
She found it, took it after getting into marital home that has been my primary residence.
Is there anything I can do as it wasn't disclosed?
I would say that if it was marital, then it was probably going to be divided equally and
just make sure that it all goes onto the spreadsheet.
If you didn't disclose it, then that's probably going to be an issue anyway in your particular
state or jurisdiction, because most states, all the ones that I know of, they require
full disclosure.
And there could be ramifications after the final judgment is entered if there wasn't
full disclosure and assets were found afterwards.
There could be a fraud claim or something like that in your particular state.
So I'd be really careful about that kind of thing.
Okay.
So let's see.
I have time for maybe one more question.
Let's see.
Okay.
Kathy, in the last couple of months mail comes to my address in my brother-in-law's name.
My ex has not followed through on judgments and his 401ks are subpoenaed.
Should subpoenas go out to his brother too?
The only problem with sending out subpoenas to a third party like that is that you might
get an objection.
And your lawyer can send out subpoenas to any third parties they want to, but the other
side's lawyer has the opportunity to object, that's why you have to file notices of intent
to serve subpoenas.
And so, those might get an objection if there's not enough of a thread to show that money
is actually in the brother-in-law's name.
So just because they're getting mail there doesn't necessarily mean there's money going
there.
So I would be a little bit careful about that.
I'm not really 100% sure that just because mail is going there, that you would have enough
to subpoena their bank accounts.
These are third parties who have a right to privacy, and if they're not a party to the
case, then the judges might be hesitant to allow subpoenas to go for their bank accounts,
because they don't want people to go on these fishing expeditions.
So.
Okay.
All right.
I think I am just about done here because I'm just doing this for a few minutes, about
15 minutes every single week and answer as many questions as I possibly can every single
week.
All of you have so many questions and I absolutely adore my community.
You guys are the best.
And I know that you're going through hell right now, I've been there.
As many of you who've watched a lot of my videos know that I've dealt with narcissists
in my own life.
And so if you haven't already, make sure that you grab my free Crush My Negotiation prep
worksheet.
It is basically an e-book and it's totally free, and you can get it at winmynegotiation.com.
And if you haven't already subscribed to my channel, now is a great time to do that.
And if you want to hear much more in depth about how to communicate with a narcissist
and where I do also answer questions, hop on to my free webinar on the Three Must Have
Secrets to Communicating With a Narcissist, I'd love to see you there too.
And otherwise I will continue to see you every single week right here.
Every day I'm uploading brand new content or I'm going live right here with you to answer
as many questions as I can.
And I'm going to be doing another live on Thursday, by the way.
And on Thursday, the topics are going to be all narcissism 101, and we're going to go
through all of the main words that are associated with narcissism so that you actually understand
when you're hearing these words be thrown around what they actually mean.
So I'm so grateful to you, I'm so glad that you're here.
Remember that today is a great day to start negotiating your best life.
I'm Rebecca Zung, thanks for joining me today.
And I'll see you in the next video.
Thank you guys so much.