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I was married to an American from Nebraska in Manitoba Canada. I am filing for a divorce here in Manitoba. My problem is that he has left the country, gone back to Lincoln, but has left me with $50,000 of his debt. It seems my lawyer thinks it would cost me a fortune in legal fees for him to go after him for this plus he doesn't know the laws governing this kind of thing in Nebraska. I do have a restraining order against him, but he was never served as they couldn't find him. I would appreciate any help anyone can offer. I have tried searching for information, but haven't a clue where to look.

All of the states have put their laws on-line as well as court information. The laws of Nebraska are at URL

www.unicam.state.ne.us/laws/index.htm

and the information on the Nebraska court system is at http://court.nol.org
I don't know how much this will help you as you are not a NE resident and couldn't file for divorce there.

However you need inforomation on how to interact with the US court system from Canada. You may in part have to go to a US Federal court. There are now a growing number of lawyers who specialize in International divorce. Recommend you find a lawyer who is versed in those procedures.

Thank you for the info. I'm going to go do some reading. I will be able to get my divorce here in Canada. We just have to have a process server serve him the papers & if he doesn't respond, the courts will after a set period of time grant the divorce. What I need to find out is whether I can go after him for the money I had to pay for his debt. In Canada, the courts will garnish the persons wages but from what I understand, only a few states do that. If it was child support, there would be no problems as we do have an agreement for that with the states.

This is a little bit different then in your case but in my divorce here in Nebraska we put in our papers that he had to pay off the account he took out in my name. You'd have to talk to a lawyer I suppose but maybe you could put something in yours that says he must pay it back? You didn't go into detail about his debt and I'm not sure I'd know the answer anyway but that's what we did with my situation.

Thanks for responding. I don't think it would matter if it was in the divorce papers or not. He would just ignore it seeing how he has left the country. He thinks no one can go after him now. What I did was co sign on a truck & 17 foot trailer that he bought. Plus I took out a loan so he could consolidate his bills. Also we had a joint checking account with a $1500 overdraft limit. I never used that account, it was really just his. The bank let it get to over $2500, so I had to pay that as well as my name was on it. Otherwise my credit rating would have gone through the roof. I've been trying to read up on the laws of Nebraska, but still not sure if they will take an order from Canada & whether I can get his wages garnished. I think if it was for child support I wouldn't have a problem, but how do you go about getting a person to pay their debt without it costing more than the debt itself. I'm sure I will just have to pay & forget about it. Just makes me angry that he can get away with it.

I'm not sure since you co-signed. I wish I had some answers for you. If I come across anything I'll let you know.

It sounds like most of the debt it tied up in a truck and trailer. Where are they?