Quote:
Originally Posted by lizardking
As I understand it, .... I am aware of a case in Harris Co. about six years ago where the wife argued .... The case was settled ... so the court did not actually rule.
Certainly, if one hides community assets with the intent of shielding them from a property division, this is conduct that is arguably "fraudulent" and can be addressed by a court.
Consequently, I believe the statement that " there cannot be conceptually a 'fraud' as a consequence of taking one's own property" is, perhaps, overbroad.
Surely we can agree that the discovery in a divorce proceeding that a guy is spending loads of cash on hookers will not typically induce a court to cut him any slack or tilt the equities in his favor, right?
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lizard, my sole concern regarding some posts on here about "the law" is that there are some folks on here who will take things literally and without qualification, sometimes even because the poster announcing "the law" has "tenure" on the board, and those persons act or react upon the statement.
Comment: A "settled" case is not a case in which there was a "finding" that spending money on a provider is a fraud on the community estate. Such a determination would have to come from an appellate decision interpreting some provision of the Texas Family Code (in Texas) that has not been reversed or otherwise "modified."
In the context of "taking" the money by paying it to a provider is not "secreting" the money, unless the provider had agreed to merely hold the money for the husband (or wife) until the husband or wife asked for it to be returned and in fact got it back. The money is not "gone" if it is held "secretely" by the other spouse, and the fraud is on the failure to disclose
an existing asset of the estates of the parties, which applies whether the asset is community or separate.
If paid to the provider, it is NOT EXISTING.
One settled case is not "precedent" for the "legal" conclusion you announced.
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