Wednesday, August 26, 2015

Quitting the Claim

One of the obligations in the divorce settlement was that Kris would sign a quitclaim to the house within 30 days. The deadline came and went with no such claim.
I do not have much leverage in this matter; I'm not really happy about having to go to court or whatever. But I do have the 2014 tax refund, which by another term of the settlement, I am required to share with her. I don't have a problem with that but it seems to me that we should both comply.
Kris kept asking me to check with the IRS to find out when the refund would apply. I always said that they had mailed me nothing, which is true, and did nothing. Perhaps it would have been better to have a confrontation then and there, but I've learned to avoid all that in dealing with her. On the other hand, our marriage fell apart so maybe that's not such a good strategy.
Finally, on Tuesday, Kris texted me that she'd contacted the IRS via web site at work, and learned that the refund had been sent. She wanted her half. I said ok. I also asked about the quitclaim. She said she'd signed one as part of the settlement.
Wednesday she wanted to come into my space and get the check; I suggested we meet in the front yard and asked her to bring her copy of the quitclaim. We met, and she produced her copy of the settlement. I went through it page by page and showed her that there was no quitclaim deed in it. I suggested that she contact her lawyer and get one signed. She said that she was unwilling to pay them to do more work for her. I sympathized with that, since they'd done a piss-poor job for her already, although I think her attitude was more than she could get something for free out of me instead of paying them. She said one of us was a lawyer and it should be easy to do. I suppose I should have charged her for the work, but I just shut up and wrote out the check.
She said she'd like to go to Meet The Butcher; I like their stuff so I drove her there. It was closed, which is not terribly surprising after 7pm on a weeknight. I headed home and she asked why I wasn't going to my credit union. This made no sense at all to me; I asked why? She said she needed to deposit the check. I should have said that this was her problem; she was going to work tomorrow and there are plenty of ATMs downtown, or that if she was in a real hurry she could walk to one from where we are right now. Instead, I drove her to the nearest ATM.
I don't know why I keep doing stuff for her. I suppose I'm thinking that if I keep on being decent, she may keep on paying what amounts to rent, which is really useful. Or perhaps I'm just used to being a nice guy. It sure smells like letting myself be exploited, though, which is something I'm good at. It doesn't help that my income situation is marginal.
I'm writing this down because years from now I'm not sure I'd believe this!

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