civilservant

You're talking about a lawsuit - which will be state dependent and expensive to litigate, assuming she can even locate him.

S Folinsky

You don’t say which state your husband has taken up residence in. By way of general comment. I am retired, but by way of example, California does not have a minimum time of separation to dissolve a marriage. California has a minimum time of residence, six months last time I looked. Nevada famously had no minimum time of residence.

durham_lad

So sorry to hear about this, what a crappy way for the husband to behave.

Since you are in the UK you may find that the SS folks at the US Embassy can help with your application for spousal SS as well. Once you are divorced you are entitled to spousal divorce SS which would continue up to the point you are remarried.

Contact details for the Federal Benefits Unit in London are listed below. My wife and I have used them to apply for Medicare and also for SS. We have found them to be very good, if not slow. (If you email them it may be a couple of months to get a reply) If you live near London it may even be worth setting up an in-person appointment. Once they got back to us via phone we went through the entire application process and they submitted our applications for us.

https://uk.usembassy.gov/u-s-citizen...benefits-unit/

Here is some information for when you are eventually divorced.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/heather...h=1b6e4cc374a2

Lara45

He has gone to South Carolina.

Lion in Winter

Serve him right


Seriously though, I would consult with someone given that you are not living in that state or even in the country.

You might find some info here.

https://www.womenslaw.org/laws/sc/divorce

Pulaski

My understanding, which I concede is limited, is that it is the residence period of the spouse filing for divorce that is relevant. So if her husband has fled to a state with, say, a six month residency requirement, then he could file for divorce after six months, even if the wife he left behind could not file where she lives, and you can only file for divorce where you meet the residency requirements.

Personally I think the OP needs an immediate consultation with a solicitor experienced in international divorces to learn more about her options and to protect her position; not least to be prepared in case she is ambushed with a divorce petition from the US.

Lion in Winter

This.


I can't vouch for the accuracy of the info in this link, but it does suggest some places to start, including legal advice services.

https://www.advicenow.org.uk/know-ho...tional-divorce

Steerpike

Hopefully you were not madly in love with this guy at this point, and his departure is mainly a problem of finance. Hopefully you will find a way to enjoy your new found freedom. You are still young! Please keep us posted on how this unfolds.

You said you have his SS number; do you have your own? You would have been given an SS number soon after arrival I believe. With his, and your, SS numbers, I would hope you could get information back from the IRS to help you piece together some financial information, like how much he contributed to Social Security over his working lifetime. He ought to have been filing US tax returns all this time; did he not leave behind any papers? Or does he have a computer with electronic copies on it? You said he was very secretive, but was he very smart? He may have left behind information you can use.

So you married in 2004 (when he was 52 and you were 47). And he retired before that, in 2003 - at age 51. That's quite young, so hopefully he earned enough in his working career to justify a decent Social Security payment (in the US, unlike the UK, the Social Security payout is more dependent on how much you paid in; there's a potential that his SS entitlement is much bigger than the UK pension).

You say the mortgage may be a burden, but is there any equity in the home? If you've been in the UK since 2010, there's a chance. If push came to shove, could you sell the house and use the equity to buy something more affordable? I presume that when he 'relinquished the house' to you, that means he gave you the equity. Any joint accounts that he left behind? Car?

(to the others on this thread) - isn't there a 2 year 'wait' in the UK in the case where you want to file for divorce but your spouse cannot be located / is not cooperating? Something like, if the person does not come forward within 2 years to contest it, then you can get a divorce without the other party's participation or consent.

Good luck!

Lara45

Sorry I got that wrong - he retired in 2009 - the year before we moved back to the UK - and from what I have found here it looks like he never filed after we left the US - so that now the two of us!! I can see trouble ahead ....

petitefrancaise

I've been hesitating to comment on this thread which most of you will know is not at all like me!
I got divorced last year and whilst we were both in USA, we had assets spread over a few countries and I can see some issues/pitfalls for the OP.
The person who files for divorce first chooses jurisdiction and so your first task must be to find out how you will fare if you divorce in the UK or South Carolina. If it is more beneficial for you to divorce in the UK, you should do this as soon as possible.
You asked about social security benefits and you will be entitled to 50 % of your husband's benefits when you reach 67 provided you don't marry again. That's not a negotiation for divorce.
It might seem easiest for you to just take the house but if it's not fully paid off and you can't afford the mortgage then you will have to sell it and be liable for any associated costs. What are his US assets? How much are they worth? What paperwork do you have?
Advice I've heard over the years is that if you have a choice then divorce where the assets are that you want a share of because enforcing divorce orders over international borders is expensive and time consuming.
And I would not trust a word of what this man says about leaving you with the house. Any lawyer he has in the USA is going to tell him to make an inventory of all assets - including joint ones and will be encouraging him to get his fair share. You should be doing the same thing now to protect your future income.
A friend is going through some issues and has been very, very impressed with this lawyer in Manchester. She wishes she had been in touch with her from the beginning. https://www.jmw.co.uk/services-for-y...elspeth-kinder
good luck.

Glasgow Girl

If you are not a US citizen then you have no concerns on the lack of tax filing as you are not required to file US tax return when no longer resident. Your husband on the other hand does have problems there but fortunately that is no longer your concern. Being married to a US citizen does not require you to file US taxes so long as you are personally neither a US citizen nor a US resident.

Your only potential exposure as a non citizen could be the year you left because you needed to file for that year as you were resident for part of the year and it sounds lIke your husband may not have filed since you would have been in the UK when it was due. However I would not be too concerned on that front. Although there is no statute of limitation on failing to file a return the innocent spouse defense should apply and in any case it was so long ago that the IRS would have no interest in pursuing this unless there were extremely large sums owed, like millions of dollars and that is probably not the case! Let sleeping dogs lie.

If you are a US citizen you should file all missing returns and for all future years. You probably need a US attorney for this because the IRS will assess tax on your UK income, interest and penalties for all missing years. However an attorney should be able to get the penalties waived using the innocent spouse defense, and also get you IRS credit for any UK tax paid. The financial hit will likely be minimal, but you will have an attorneys bill to pay. There are attorneys who specialize in this situation which is actually not at all uncommon.

Pulaski

But per post #11, she was, and maybe still is, a permanent resident, and permanent residents are required to file tax returns on the same basis as USCs.

She assumed that her PR status automatically ended when she stopped living in the US but that was not the case at the time she left the US, and as she appears not to have filed an I-407, it is IMO likely that she may still be a PR and therefore tax returns are still due from her. .... A preemptive I-407 would likely be a good move at this point to remove the uncertainty.

Glasgow Girl

I believe that a green card is automatically considered to be abandoned if you leave the country on a permanent basis. Back in the 2010 time frame I think it was automatically abandoned after 6 months, now I think it is one year for it to be considered abandoned. In any case it has to be renewed every 10 years and she likely got it in the mid 2000s so would have expired quite a long time ago.

Pulaski

That is a common misconception, and certainly isn't true in the short term (at least 2-3 years), and it is not certain at what point it would become true. The reality is that someone with a green card, even an expired one, if they enter the US, would be entitled to make their case in front of an immigration judge even if it "appeared" for years that they had abandoned their PR status. And without the filing of an I-407 I have no idea how the IRS would learn definitively that a PR had left the US permanently and wasn't going to file any more tax returns.

Glasgow Girl

Good catch. If I was the OP I would contact a US immigration attorney, or perhaps the US embassy, to determine if she can retrospectively cancel her LPR status to the date she left permanently as that would resolve the tax issues. I would pursue that avenue very hard because if she is liable to US taxes as a non resident LPR then that opens up potential issues with FBARs and foreign account reporting issues which is a much bigger deal. I would think that she would be able to cancel back to the last date she left the USA. Hopefully she did not go back after she took up residence in the UK.

Otherwise, as you say she would be treated like a citizen for US tax purposes and she will be required to back file all the missing years, and although an attorney should be able to minimize the tax hit via the innocent spouse defense and the UK tax credit, they likely could also work out a deal with the IRS because she clearly intended to abandon her LPR status.