I have a joint home equity loan with someone I was supposed to marry but did not. He moved out in March of 2010 and the house is in my name ...

Question

I have a joint home equity loan with someone I was supposed to marry but did not. He moved out in March of 2010 and the house is in my name solely now but we still have this combined loan for which he is primary on and I am secondary. We did use a lot of the loan on the home for repairs and such but not all of it. We purchased a van for him and he has paid me back for that but feels he owes no more so he quit paying as of January of 2013. Unfortunately we took out lump sums from time to time and used it on various things so there is no good paper trail. Is there any hope of me being able to get him to be responsible for even just a portion of the loan?

Answer

In Ohio, if you are both on the loan, then with regard to the creditor, you are both responsible for the entire amount. It does not matter who received the benefits of the loan. However, in any sort of a lawsuit over the amount, you would each have claims against each other, and that would be how a court would divide up the amounts taken out between the two of you. It might take a form something like this: The creditor sues you both for $10,000.00 (just making up a round number here since I don't know the amount involved). You sue the other guy for $6,000.00 since you believe that was how much he ran up on the account and he sues you for $7,000.00 claiming that is how much you ran up on the account.

The court awards judgment against the two of you for $10,000.00 and let's say you pay them that. Then you and the other guy would have to fight it out to determine how much of that $10,000.00 he should pay. But even if you get a judgment against the guy, will he be collectible? You can't get money out of a stone. Further, he could simply declare bankruptcy even if you did get a sizeable judgment against him. So there are some other calculations that need to be made with regard to this matter.