When an unmarried person joins the service, their pay and benefits are theirs alone and they are not the property of any other person. When a veteran buys a home using their VA benefits that home becomes the separate property of that person. The reason is that they had obtained that benefit while in the service. This notion is far different from what the state courts previously ruled. These courts were trying to transfer wealth from men who earned it to shrewish women who did not.

However, State courts consider VA compensation as divisible income in determining spousal and child support and the division of property. The VA will not honor a garnishment order however a judge can order the veteran to pay. If the veteran refuses, then the court can hold the veteran in contempt. So once your VA compensation is in your bank account, the state courts can garnish your payments and require the veteran to do whatever they order them to do. If a veteran refuses to comply, the court can seize the veteran’s property and imprison the veteran.

Many courts use an adjustable computer program to compute the amount of the support that someone wants rather than what someone is entitled. So spousal support (taxable income to the payee) becomes child support (which is a taxable outlay for the payer). This means the children become a source of tax-free income for their mother and often, she gets the home. The courts know about this because they are a part of the scandal.

This is how it works. Someone enters values used in the computation that the computer program determines the amount that the obligor has to pay. If the user does not like the results, then he or she can change the mode. Instead of using the real values, the computer can produce a result that is what the user wants.

Now the computer system transfers this information to another system that monitors the payer's bank account. So when the payer receives money, the appropriate computer will move it from the payer's account to their own account and then disperse it. However, it takes time to verify the demand and to withdraw to funds to cover it. In other words, the intermediary steals money by taking advantage of the float (the delay between the transaction and the actual withdrawal).

The courts have treated retirement benefits earned or received before a marriage as marital property rather than separate property. This is incompatible with the legal characterization of property. Retirement benefits earned or received before marriage is separate property but the courts have ignored that characterization.

A vindictive woman successfully demanded the award of her husband’s artificial leg and part of his disability payments. The courts should have treated these as the husband’s separate property but they did not. Not only does that make her Queen for a day but Queen for life. So divorce is not really divorce but simply another opportunity, created by the courts for a vexatious woman to ply her wiles and extract more money. It is extortion and that what courts do.

A veteran’s estate is his separate property. No court will deprive a veteran of his estate, home, or its contents. Nor will any court diminish or prevent the owner’s present and future enjoyment of his separate property, holdings, and benefits derived from these things. So if a court official has taken out a restraining order against a veteran, then the veteran has good reason to oppose it and get it removed. Most people do not know that courts can evict them from their own home when the restraining order authorizes their eviction.

That is why some of us call them ‘kick out’ orders and a woman's own criminal state of mind is a leading motive behind false allegations of abuse. So if a person’s wife decides to lie, all she has to do is obtain a restraining order that evicts her husband. Then he must leave with only what he is wearing with no other items while her relatives or another person moves in. However, he still must pay the bills and the mortgage.

Most states routinely issue thousands of restraining orders exclusively against men each year and they only work one way. The law restrains males from doing what they have to do while females can do whatever they want. This means that if a person does not comply with the order, then the police can arrest them for violating the order. Also the police can charge a person with violating a restraining order that does not exist. The difference is that women do not have to prove anything while men cannot insist that they do. This is why these restraining orders deny due process and can be far more dangerous to him because false allegations of abuse is, by definition, not a mutual matter. Moreover, these restraining orders contribute to the lie of abuse and that perpetuates the exact opposite of what must be done. Simply stop the extortion and punish the abuser.

When the courts issue a restraining order with a stay away provision that evicts a party from his or her home, that person is entitled to a prompt evidentiary hearing. The reason for this is that the provision adversely affects the excluded person’s liberty and property rights. If the excluded person owns the home from which they exclude him or her, then the restraining order violates his or her ownership rights according to the Fourteenth Amendment.

The problem is that courts often postpone the due process of law until after the deprivation has occurred and the damage has been done. So the courts usurp the target’s right the judicial process by their ingrained presumption of guilt, by the same issuing authority, in a previous and illegal ex-parte hearing. These courts do not care about right and wrong for their decisions are based on the false supposition that women can do no wrong, so cheat the husband.

Congress intended to protect veterans’ compensation and benefits from third party awards before and after the beneficiary received them. The Veteran’s Administration awards compensation to persons based on their disabilities. This why disability compensation and benefits are exempt from taxation and they are not legally divisible. Congress never intended that this money would go to those who had never served in the military.

Most states require that each litigant file a complete and certifiable financial statement with the court and then, each party must certify that the report is accurate and complete. The problem is that often courts require more from one party than they do from another. These are the amounts that some judges use to decide the veteran’s ability to pay support.

The problem is that judges often commingle separate assets with other assets. A separate asset belongs to one person. A joint asset belongs to several persons through the various types of possession. Marital assets are only those assets that both spouses earned or received together but only during their marriage because no person can be a spouse without being married. So the only reason that someone would commingle separate assets with any other, would be to cheat the adverse party, most likely the veteran.

In most states, each spouse owns their own separate personal property. In this sense, ‘personal’ means for the private use of the spouse who owns the property. Any property that a spouse had bought or received before marriage remains their separate property. It includes anything received as a gift or inheritance and all funds received from sales, rents and leases of the spouse’s separate property.

In community property states, property owned entirely by one spouse is their separate property. Also any benefits that anyone buys or receives before marriage, remain that spouse’s separate property no matter of its source.  So separate property includes all property that a spouse obtained before marriage no matter of its source. It also includes any properties that are traceable to separate property. For an example, cash from the sale of a vintage car owned by one spouse before marriage is that spouse’s separate property.

This also means that any property taxes that arise from that ownership remains responsibility of the spouse who owns it. Other forms of separate property are gifts, inheritances, purchases, and income from leases, rents, and sales. So the most important maxim is that no one commingles a person’s property with another. That would be a prelude to theft because at divorce, the courts (in theory) do not divide separate property, the spouse who has it keeps it and that is the scandal.

An asset is the property of a person or their estate applicable or subject to the payment of debts. It is an item of value owned whether intrinsic or monetary. Often the intrinsic value of an item is far greater than its monetary value. Recompense is an equivalent or a return for something done, suffered, or given. So when a veteran receives Social Security and VA Disability compensation, the courts calculate those amounts as joint marital assets rather than separate property.

Military retirement pay and veterans’ disability compensation are not the same thing. Retirement pay is taxable income but disability compensation is tax exempt. Some state courts strip veterans of their disability compensation by illegally classifying it as a divisible asset. This means that the state courts can divide it.  However, disability compensation is not an ‘asset’ in determining a disabled veteran’s net worth. It is recompense for service given, injury suffered, or loss incurred. It is also exempt from taxation and from the claims of creditors and payees such as their former spouse and her lawyer(s).

This is not a misinterpretation of federal law. Congress wrote the law to protect veterans and their benefits from these egregious excesses and those excesses are extortionary. According to law, veterans’ benefits belong solely to the person disabled, and no one can divert these benefits to a third party for any reason. What most American taxpayers do not know is that state courts have diverted millions of dollars of veterans’ benefits to able-body ex-spouses.

Yet veterans face imprisonment and the loss of their property if they refuse to comply and so the court’s behavior reflects its contempt toward veterans. If the American taxpayer discovered that these veterans were not married to their ex-spouse when they received their injuries, they would try to stop it. The judge is very aware the disabled veteran does not have the funds to fight his ruling. The judge is also aware that he cannot go to the VA and attach to a veteran’s disability compensation. They also know that the VA will not give it to anyone but the disabled veteran that earned the benefit.

This means that payments of benefits are not assignable but to the extent specifically authorized by law. All payments made to the beneficiary will be exempt from taxation and from claims of creditors. Moreover, those payments are not subject to attachment, levy, or seizure by or under any legal or equitable process whatever, either before or after receipt by the beneficiary. That is the law, and it is about time that the courts obey it.

The Servicemen’s Readjustment Act, known as the GI Bill of Rights, gave veterans a federally guaranteed home loan with no down payment. This bill fulfilled the dream of home ownership for many veterans of the armed services. All veterans who wanted to participate in the program had to qualify because they are not automatically eligible for the program. Moreover, veterans’ benefits are not divisible assets.

What had happened was that the courts decided that a veteran’s home, his property, and his benefits became divisible assets they could divide. This is in contrast with U.S.C., Title 38, 5301(a)(1) that says that payments of benefits due or to become due is not assignable. This did not make difference because these benefits became judicial plunder for women who never did qualify.

Private lenders, such as banks, savings and loans, or mortgage companies make loans to eligible veterans for the purchase of a home, which must be for the veteran's personal occupancy. The guaranty protects the lender against loss if the veteran or subsequent owner fails to repay the loan. So this guaranty replaces the protection the lender normally receives by requiring a down payment and this permits the veteran to obtain favorable financing terms. So when the courts award the home to the veteran’s wife, she is receiving a benefit that she never earned.

A home is probably the most valuable asset that a person has and this is particularly true with most veterans. Unlike most other property (in a good economy), real estate does not depreciate but becomes more valuable especially if it properly maintained and upgraded. This makes men more vulnerable to extortion through false claims of spousal abuse or child abuse.

So she gets his home and he still has to pay the mortgage including child spousal support. The solution is simple. A spouse or a family court cannot take a veteran’s home from him or contrive to do so. It is his separate property and no one can alienate, surrender, or transfer it for any reason without his undisputed and freely given consent. Otherwise, that would be extortion.

So if a veteran were not married when he entered military service, then any benefit that he receives because of his military service is his separate property. This also includes the ability to buy a home of his own. If a veteran married while in the military, then any benefit granted is his or her separate property and includes the right to buy a home as separate property. If a veteran were married during his time in service then other rules may apply especially if their spouse were or was a veteran.

The law requires that a veteran who obtains a guaranteed home loan from the VA must certify that he or she will occupy that home. Yet if a court order evicts a veteran relating to an unproven allegation, then he cannot comply with the provisions made by the Veteran’s Administration. This is true even when the basis of the order is false.

The result is that the veteran can lose his home and personal property to a malicious and spiteful spouse. In addition, others may join in and steal and destroy his property when it appears that he may prevail in court. This kind of behavior is typical and that is why we should never allow abusive women to evict their husband from his home. They are not only rapacious of their husband’s property, they also do not want their husband to enjoy the security and contentment that only home ownership can give.

The VA requires that a veteran that has obtained a VA home loan must personally occupy that dwelling and its property as his primary domicile. If the veteran had earned his VA benefits before his marriage to his current spouse, then those benefits remain the separate property of that veteran. This means that any person who claims abuse cannot evict the veteran from his or her home through any contrivance or a court order. The reason for this is that the veteran must personally occupy his home, judges and their ex parte restraining orders not withstanding.

Most judges issue restraining orders to maintain the conditions that currently exist. This is not sensible because maintaining current conditions is exactly what the abuser wants to do. The problem is that most judges will nearly always issue a restraining order without holding a hearing and by that time, the damage has been done. So I propose that no one can evict a veteran from his home the pretext of abuse. Moreover the order would permanently bar the accusing party from entering or occupying the veteran’s home and restrain the accusing party from making additional allegations.

Edward Steven Nunes

Notes

U.S.C., Title 38, 5301(a)(1) says that "Payments of benefits due or to become due shall not be assignable." This means that the court cannot transfer the benefits and rights to another person or entity. However, judges and their courts do this all the time but no one has punished a judge for cheating a veteran. Is not that Congress's Responsibility?

Links

U.S. Department of Justice

Veterans Administration Home Page

VA Benefits Administration