Who is the deadbeat here?

[draco664]

A Canadian couple with 4 kids split in 2005.

Amicably come to a legal agreement in 2008, where :

Mother gets the 1.2 million dollar, lakefront home (after paying out 168K to Dad)
Mother gets sole custody of kids.
Mother gets 2K/month rent from attached dwelling.
Mother gets 2.3K/month child support.
Mother gets 2.5K/month from government for disabled child.

Father gets 168K from his part of the family home.

The agreement includes the fact that the father has met all spousal support needs by giving up the home.

Thee years later, mother figures she needs more, and takes father to court to get the original contract modified.

Judge tears up contract, adds spousal support, *back-dates* the spousal support, and tells father to pay for both his and his ex-wife's legal bills.

At that point, father decides that at 51, he can't afford to save for retirement under such conditions, sells everything, cashes his pension, and takes off.

So, who's the deadbeat here?

[Canarr]

Hmmm... there's something about this article I don't like. Where's the fact checking? Hans Mills "reportedly" took his wife to court three times? Why would he do that, if *he* was satisfied with the original agreement, and *she* wasn't? What's the background on that?

Also, I couldn't turn up any other source for the story; all other hits I found merely copied the Star's piece. Then again, my Google skills aren't exactly top-notch; anybody else have more luck?

Still, if the story is true... I can't fault him for running. Overturning the original settlement was a dick move on the judge's part. But, there's more here that I don't get: if the original settlement was negated, how come the mother still owns the house? I don't know much about Canadian law, but under German law, if a contract is retroactively negated, any and all property transfers made through that contract must be reversed - meaning, he'd get back his half of the house.

Can someone with more legal knowledge of Canada maybe shed some light on this?

However, no matter how much of a dick that judge was: not paying child support to his children *does* make him a deadbeat.

[Rapscallion]

If the article can be taken at face value, I'd say he was forced into it. However, I'd like to know far more about this case before passing judgement.

Rapscallion

[draco664]

Hmmm... there's something about this article I don't like. Where's the fact checking? Hans Mills "reportedly" took his wife to court three times? Why would he do that, if *he* was satisfied with the original agreement, and *she* wasn't? What's the background on that?

For what it's worth, some commentators have said that they 'know' it's because she didn't pony up the 168K for her part of the house. She eventually had to borrow it from her mother to pay. Take it for what you will.

Still, if the story is true... I can't fault him for running. Overturning the original settlement was a dick move on the judge's part. But, there's more here that I don't get: if the original settlement was negated, how come the mother still owns the house? I don't know much about Canadian law, but under German law, if a contract is retroactively negated, any and all property transfers made through that contract must be reversed - meaning, he'd get back his half of the house.

Can someone with more legal knowledge of Canada maybe shed some light on this?

However, no matter how much of a dick that judge was: not paying child support to his children *does* make him a deadbeat.

He did pay, right up until the judge ruled against him.

If he earned over 100K, say 120, then he's taking home about 70K. The new ruling would see him paying 48K a year to her, leaving him about 22K to live on. Now, also consider that the judge ruled that he owed *back pay* on the spousal support he was not, up until then, legally obliged to pay, and then on top of that had to pay for both his and her legal bills.

On 22K take home? Sorry, but that's legalised slavery.

[Canarr]

He did pay, right up until the judge ruled against him.

I got that, yes; but apparently, he's not paying now. And, while I can understand dodging that unfair judge's ruling - if the story is as told - there really is no excuse for not supporting your children.

[Greenday]

The guy was unfairly beaten by the second court decision. It was a drastically unfair ruling. The ex-wife has only three kids to watch and one of those three is nearly an adult already that clearly doesn't need the supervision the other two do.

I don't understand where all the money is going that she is in so much debt. She gets $2,000 a year from renting out another room. She gets a ton of money in child support. Since it's Canada, the answer isn't medical bills. So where does it all go?

[Andara Bledin]

Considering the list of problems his eldest kids have (son, 19 and an adult, has a meth problem, daughter, 17, former good student, now has depression) and that the mother has had sole custody for the last 7 years, I strongly suspect that the mother has some serious problems raising the kids without the father around.

Considering that she got the house and the rental property, which should be providing $2k/month, there's something seriously amiss if she needs him to send her money, as well. It seems to me that a large part of his former income was from the rental property that he no longer has.

I would suggest, since the house they're in is a $1.2m lakefront property, that she rent that out and live somewhere less ridiculous.

^-.-^

[bara]

She should have listed that house asap. Thats what I would have done since the upkeep on a house like that would be very high. We can effectively ignore the 19 year old, hes an adult. What caused the 17 year olds depression? Was it a dead beat dad or was it a horrible mom? Or maybe shes just a teenager?

There is a lot going on here and Im sure we dont have the whole story. If he was taking her to court to try to get the money she owed him, then we cant blame him for that. I have to assume (perhaps wrongly) that he was taking her to court to get the money she owed him, if it was for another reason then she probably would have said so to garner more sympathy. What he did was wrong, and he knows it. But it seems as though he was forced into an impossible decision.

[Crazedclerkthe2nd]

I know there are plenty of useless, deadbeat dads out there but at the same time it really bothers me that court systems are so brutally biased towards the mother a lot of the time.

From what I can tell, this man more than fulfilled his obligation and there was no reason to go after him for more other than the woman apparently wanting to stick one to him simply because she doesn't know how to manage money.

I'm no Canadian legal expert, but I did become familiarized with the process somewhat when my parents divorced. As far as I am aware the only major difference is that in Canada, there can be longer terms mandated for spousal support/alimony. I think child support is the same, you have to provide until the child turns 18.

[Andara Bledin]

There is an awful lot of "think of the children" crying with essentially useless exposition on how bad they all have it (all four have issues, possibly all medical - and the mom can't work, though I didn't catch why not).

Based on comments on the article in another report, she's had offers on the house, gets $2500/month in disability, in addition to the $2000/month in rent and the $2235/month from him that she's now not getting. That adds up to nearly $7000/month coming in - what is her mortgage payment, and has she made any effort to have it redone to reflect her current income status?

Also, comments note that she had offers on the house from others in the neighborhood (they probably want her out, if the boozing and slutting around comments are at all accurate), but she refused to even consider them. With the house valued at $1.2m and $600k left on the mortgage, that's still half a million available on a sale, which can buy you a very nice little family place somewhere less ridiculously out of your range to maintain.

^-.-^

[Seifer]

I got that, yes; but apparently, he's not paying now. And, while I can understand dodging that unfair judge's ruling - if the story is as told - there really is no excuse for not supporting your children.

More like he was supporting his greedy, dead-beat wife. She shouldn't require over 6k a month to take care of three children - not unless they eat like horses and require a new outfit every two days. Yes, one of them had a disability, but she was getting a huge monthly check from the government specifically for that child.

I don't blame him for running. It's not that he doesn't want to support his children, he simply doesn't want to be forced into homelessness due to his ex-wife's greed.

[Andara Bledin]

Don't forget, this is Canada, so medical bills should not be the issue they would be in the US.

^-.-^

[draco664]

I got that, yes; but apparently, he's not paying now. And, while I can understand dodging that unfair judge's ruling - if the story is as told - there really is no excuse for not supporting your children.

Of course he's not paying now. He's not earning 100K in Manila.

That's the thing that a lot of people don't seem to see. He was paying close to half his take home income in child support, but the new ruling essentially meant that he was destitute.

So he upped and left - not just his country, but his well-paying job too.

Now, in Manila, he can probably live quite comfortably on the resources he took with him. But not if he kept paying that level of child support.

So we have a situation where the judge basically ruled that he should live in poverty to support his ex-wife while she lived in a million dollar lake-side house, while she poisoned the kids' minds against him. His choice was stay and be a legal slave, or leave and let her try and survive on a measly 4.5K a month.

The kids aren't starving, even without his support. I'd feel a lot differently if they were.

[Seifer]

From the article:

Eight months since he last heard from his dad, Mills’ son Steven was eager to open a package that had just arrived from the Philippines in advance of his 11th birthday. Steven’s face dropped and tears welled up in his eyes when he saw its contents: dried banana chips, cassava chips, caramel popcorn and salted peanuts.

The birthday card accompanying the dry goods said: “Dear Steve, I hope you have a wonderful birthday. Love from Dad.”

“Why would I want this from my deadbeat dad?” the youngster said. “If he really cared, he’d be here.”

What on Earth was he expecting? His father to mail himself to Canada in a box?

Considering the son apparently used the words "deadbeat dad", I'm going to go out on a limb and say the mother is feeding them her own opinions. I wonder if the kids realized just how badly their father was going to get fucked by the system if he stayed?

[fireheart17]

What on Earth was he expecting? His father to mail himself to Canada in a box?

Considering the son apparently used the words "deadbeat dad", I'm going to go out on a limb and say the mother is feeding them her own opinions. I wonder if the kids realized just how badly their father was going to get fucked by the system if he stayed?

Probably not. And I think you're right, it does sound like mommy is feeding them her own opinions and attempting to demonize him.


I also suspect that if the box contained expensive games or gadgets, he wouldn't be screaming as much.