My Lil Red Dress

Regardless of the type of divorce process you choose to use, it is important to identify your marital estate. The marital estate is defined by the South Carolina Equitable Apportionment Statute and generally comprises all assets and debts acquired by either party during the marriage, regardless of title. As you can guess, there are numerous exceptions to this rule, so discuss this issue carefully with your attorney. For starters, however, you should begin to gather the following information, regardless of how it was obtained or who obtained it, as long as it was obtained during the marriage. Gather information on an asset used during the marriage, regardless of when it was obtained.

An example of an “asset” would be your residence, a car, a boat, a valuable piece of artwork, a retirement account, or an investment account. An asset is anything that is worth money! Don’t worry about loans on the assets (such as your mortgage or a car loan), because you will be listing all of these debts separately. The result will be your “net” marital estate.

Here is a brief checklist to help guide you with this process. It is by no means a comprehensive list, so anticipate that your attorney will need more information, but it is a good starting place.

Income/ Assets:

• Income tax returns for the previous five years

• Retirement account statements; one from the date of marriage, one current.

• Estimated valuation of all real estate acquired during the marriage

• Estimated value of the marital residence, if owned

• Statements from current investment accounts

• Statements from college savings accounts for minor children

• Estimated (Blue Book) value of all automobiles

• Itemization of all valuable artwork, jewelry, etc. with estimate of values

• Copies of all trusts

• Copies of all whole life insurance policies or annuities

• Recent statements from whole life and annuity policies

• Copies of all corporate papers; Sub S Corp’s, LLC’s etc.

Debts

• Current credit card statements

• Current mortgage balances (1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc….)

• Automobile loans

• Promissory notes

• Student loans

• Secured loans

• Other debts and obligations (unsecured)

In complicated cases, a financial professional is helpful to assist in establishing the value of the marital estate. In the more straightforward cases, you and your lawyer can establish the values using and Excell or Numbers spreadsheet, or just a pencil and paper!

The bottom line is that you want to identify everything that was obtained during the marriage, or used as marital property during the marriage regardless of how it was obtained.

HOT TIP: You will also want to have this information very well organized for your attorney or financial professional. You pay these people by the hour, so the less time they need to spend organizing your financial matters, the less money you will pay for this service!

Take it from someone who has been through it, there is nothing fun about getting a divorce. Perfectly normal people turn into raving lunatics during the process of ending a marriage…and people who weren’t normal to begin with really go off the deep end. Even the most amicable of divorces often cause hard feelings and anger. I’ve often thought that divorce shows the worst side of humanity.

There are plenty of emotional issues associated with getting a divorce, and I don’t want to make light of those, but it’s important to understand that getting a divorce is akin to breaking up a business. Of course, it’s much worse than that because the “business” that’s coming to an end is not just a financial partnership – it’s an emotional partnership and often a parenting partnership as well.

Unless you have no children and no assets, choosing your divorce lawyer is going to be one of the most important decisions that you make. I have a lot of friends who didn’t want a divorce, so instead of choosing a good attorney, they spent all their time trying to save a marriage that was clearly over. Even after knowing that their ex had retained an attorney and was filing papers, they still focused their energies on “working things out.” Do not be one of these people. Maybe you’ll work things out before the divorce is final and get back together, and that’s great – but don’t make your decisions with that assumption or you’ll be really sorry when you get a grossly unfair settlement because you weren’t prepared.

There’s plenty of advice out there on how to choose your divorce lawyer. In my opinion, the most important thing you can do is to choose someone who you feel comfortable with. It’s also extremely important to select an attorney that has experience with situations like yours. For example, if custody is going to be a big issue, find an attorney who has tried a lot of contested custody cases. Don’t be afraid to ask them how many they’ve won. If you and your spouse owned a business, find an attorney with advanced experience in valuation.

The fact is that when you are getting a divorce, there are plenty of people who will be willing to give you advice about choosing an attorney, but in the end, you’ve really got to follow your gut on this one. You are going to have to work closely with this person for some time so you’ll need to make sure that it’s someone you feel comfortable with.

Another important think to consider when choosing your attorney is communication. I’ve heard more complaints from people going through divorces about not being able to get in touch with their attorney than anything else. Before you sign a retainer with any attorney, make sure that you discuss how you’ll communicate and when you can expect to get responses to your questions and issues.

Once you’ve hired your attorney, don’t be afraid to voice your concerns, if you have them. Remember that your attorney is charging you by the hour..actually, by the portion of an hour, so don’t call for small issues. On the other hand, if you have a legitimate concern or question, make sure that feel able to talk to your attorney about it.

Last, when you are getting a divorce, it’s absolutely key that you are honest with your divorce lawyer about every aspect of your divorce. They can not help you if you aren’t being upfront with them.

If you are in the process of ending a marriage, I know how hard it is for you, and I don’t want to sound callous or mean…it’s just that taking care of your financial well-being is that important.

Check back soon – we’ll talk about the emotional ramifications of divorce in a future post.

For additional reading on divorce, check out the following great books:

The Divorce Organizer & Planner: I used this exact planner during my divorce. If you are a person who likes to write things down, this is a GREAT book. It helps you to get all of your information together and to keep it organized.

Your Divorce Advisor : A Lawyer and a Psychologist GuideYou Through the Legal and Emotional Landscape of Divorce: This is a wonderful book written by both an attorney and a psychologist and really hits a lot of the legal and emotional issues that you’ll face during the end of your marriage.