Alright this is going to be the super condensed version of this so if you need more info just ask.
My buddy met this girl a while ago and they started dating. After a few months of dating they decided to get a place together. They moved into an apartment on March 1st of last year. The place is 100 percent in his name with no co-signer. Everything in this place belongs to him except for some of this girls clothes and a TV.
Like a fool my best friend was wrangled into buy an engagement ring for her. The have been engaged since last October or somewhere in that area.
Well last night he found out that she was cheating on him. They argued and she broke his laptop computer. She also hit him and broke her hand on his head in the process. He told her to get out of his house so she took his car and went to the hospital and did whatever. He went to work. While he was at work he asked his dad to get his car whenever she came back with it. So his dad got his car and took it to his house so safe keeping. A few hours ago she had just realized that the car was gone. She went insane and threw his clothes, bills and laptop that was already broken out off of the balcony.
The police were called to remove her and his dad went over because he was still at work. The police told him that his dad should not have took that car from her even though it is entirely in my buddies name. The police also were not able to remove her from the house even though she has no claim to anything in it. He has to take her to court for a PFA (protection from abuse) and is not allowed in his own house without a police escort. On top of that the officers told my friend that she has a claim to half of the apartment and its contents. They will need to go to court to settle it.
as he told me all of this i was dumbfounded. How does she have any fucking right to anything? why couldn’t they kick her out? She was fucking destroying hes property and belongings but they LEFT HER THERE! I am absolutely speechless.
I was totally under the impression that he could tell her to get the fuck out on a whim and take his car back if he wanted because he owns everything.
You have not been able to declare a common law marriage in the state of Pennsylvania since January 1, 2005. Any CLMs declared before that are still considered valid marriages that would require a full and legal divorce proceeding for termination.
From a legal perspective, common law marriage only existed if you had demonstrated an intent to be viewed as a married couple (normally by saying wedding vows or telling everyone that you’re married, though this isn’t a specific requirement). If you lived with someone for 20 years but always maintained that you were not married, it was NOT a common law marriage.
In general, cops will not try to determine or assign ownership during a domestic dispute. As far as they are concerned things are usually 1/2 ownership between co-habitants and it’s up to the Court to say otherwise.
First off, beyond the perhaps less than swift things your buddy did previously, letting her leave with his car in the first place was absolutely retarded.
Second, going to work and leaving all his stuff readily accessible by her was equally dumb.
Third, sounds like the cops are really just trying to stay out of it and most likely really do not have a clue as to what is the current state of the law(s) pretaining to this situation. Tell him to contact an attorney ASAP that focuses on divorces. They should be able to actually give him correct insight as to what his/her rights are in this mess.
If your buddy needs help finding one, shoot me a pm as I’m an attorney (thankfully that does not deal with anything even remotely related to such BS) and I know a few people that would be knowledgeable with this kind of crap.