Location: Virginia Beach, Va
I am im the process of divorcing my STB ex husband. When he moved out he left a lot behind. It stayed at his sister’s house for 5 months (this is where we lived at seperation). When I moved, I moved it all and 8 months later it is still in my house.
The problem now, I received a notification that my child’s bank account was about to close due to a zero balance. They should have money in it, so I went to see where it was spent, only to find it had been transferred out. The statement shows it was my ex and the bank confirmed the name of who initiated the transfer. After checking I found multiple transfers he made. He is an authorized user so the bank wont take the funds back from him. I never noticed because my child rarely spends their money so I wasn’t reconciling the account each month. I won’t make that mistake again.
I think it is only fair that I be able to sell anything in my house to recoup my child’s funds, including my ex’s stuff.
My thinking is that it has been over a year and everything can be considered abandoned and is now mine to do with as I see fit. Am I wrong?
Comments
You need to at least give him a reasonable amount of time with notice to come claim the property. Which in your state is a 10 day offical notice. After you do that and he doesn’t come get the property by that time you can do what you want with it.
The easiest way to deal with this is through the divorce process–you should try to get that money back out of his share of the marital estate.
If you want to try to dispose of his things, you would at minimum need to do so in accordance with Virginia’s abandoned property laws. Realistically, you should not do this at all because it could complicate your situation in the divorce. Talk to your divorce attorney.