Important Details

What do you want from your divorce settlement? The house? The car? The painting on the living room wall? The leather couch from the den? Partial reimbursement for the kids’ extracurricular activities? A percentage of your spouse’s 401K?  While there is no guarantee that you will be awarded every request, there are ways to ensure that nothing is overlooked. It is important to clarify first for yourself (then to your attorney) exactly what you want from the divorce settlement.  Take time to thoroughly brainstorm until you come up with a list of things that are most important to you regarding the dissolution of your marriage.  Take into consideration your current lifestyle, finances, children’s ages, living situation, employment status, and all the other logistics that will likely be affected by a marital break-up. Write down everything that comes to mind, matters big and small.  The next step is to review your list and prioritize which points are most important to you.  Then go over your list again and make each item as specific as possible.

For example:

“College Savings” for her children was at the top of one woman’s list.  Knowing that she and her husband would both be affected financially by their divorce, she still wanted to ensure that they both continued to contribute to their children’s college funds. In order to avoid any future discrepancies on this matter, she was advised to be as specific as possible concerning this topic.  Her husband also agreed that continuing to save for college was important.  As a result, in their final divorce papers it is stated that both husband and wife are to contribute X amount of dollars on the first day of every month into each child’s college savings account for X amount of years. Each child’s full name and individual account number are noted.  Having a specific dollar amount, deposited into a specific account, on a specific day of the month, for a specific duration of time, eliminates any potential confusion as to where and how money for college will be saved.

This same principle of specificity can apply to most articles in the divorce agreement.  Eliminating ambiguity sets forth clear expectations and responsibilities for each party involved, thus reducing the occurrence of future conflicts and misunderstanding as well as further legal proceedings.