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How have you handled the bills during the separation/divorce?

Should I switch all the bills/utilities
His name
My name
Joint

I am not sure how to best protect myself.

The best way to protect yourself is to see a lawyer and find out what you are entitled to and what your situation means in your state.

Have you seen an attorney yet?

Are you staying in the marital home where the utilities are, or is he?

What you may find is that some utilities will not take someone's name off the bill unless the person to be removed agrees. In my opinion the person who is moving out should always agree to have their name taken off. Otherwise they are setting themselves up to be liable for a bill they have no control over but where they are legally responsible to pay.

You may also find that some utilities want to charge you a FEE to change the names on the account. You can try to fight it by asking to speak to a supervisor.

If he is staying in the marital home and you are moving out, then you want your name off the bills ASAP. You don't want him running up charges where you have no control, but leaving you potentially liable.

For example he could decide to order up all kinds of extra cable services via On Demand and you have no say in it. If your name is still on that bill, it could hurt your credit rating if he stops paying.

Thank you for the information.

I have a meeting with my lawyer this week.

I will talk to the lawyer and see what I should be doing.

Thank you so much y'all!

Once we separated I switched all the utilities to my name. The way it worked was the utility had to stop service in his name (generating a final bill for him), then start new service in my name. I did this because I knew I could not depend on him to pay the bills. I did not want to be at his mercy. Furthermore, this helped establish me again as an on-time bill-paying American citizen. The utilities have all been great in doing this. When I explained that this was a divorce situation they all waived the "new service" fee and other bogus fees.

My STBXWH sent me an email giving me 10 days to get all of the utilities out of his name or he would have them turned off. He was gracious enough to give up any deposits. It made me sick at first. Who does that? Who shuts off utilities where their children live? A narcissistic psychopath, that's who... I talked to my attorney and she told me to go ahead and do it, that there was no downside to me. She could use his email against him in court, since divorce was happening it would need done eventually anyway, and it would help build my credit. So I did it. It wasn't so hard, just time consuming. Don't be embarrassed to tell them why you are doing it (going through divorce). It's amazing how many people have walked this road and have compassion. Power company waived transfer fee. Cable company called him and he had to verbally waive his rights, but he did... BONUS for me - that also gave me ownership of one of his personal email accounts... Found some interesting things. They would make lovely 8x10 glossies.. Anyway, there was only one that actually had a deposit of $50, so I can say he in essence gave me $25 he didn't have to. I guess he's just generous that way. :)