How To Plan Your Divorce Financing

By Joseph Baker


When couples are ending a marriage, most western countries do not allow lawyers to represent their clients for a share of the settlement they will secure. It is often feared that such a process can result in nastier divorces. The same rules, however, do not apply to financiers. This is why it is important to consider your divorce financing options before getting to the process.

In most cases, when you hear people discussing issues to do with separation of marriage and finances, they are generally discussing alimony, child support, and property division. However, it is crucial not to overlook one important financial issue relating to meeting expenses during the process. The attorney has to be settled and still pay for related filing costs. This can be a bit hard without ready cash.

Not all divorces are expensive. Some of the super cheap marriage annulments may not even require a lawyer. In most cases, they will cost hundreds of dollars. But when you are looking at a marriage separation with costs running into tens of thousands of dollars, it becomes an expensive process, calling for proper planning of finances. You do not apply for funding to super cheap divorces.

When spouses are informed about what it entails getting to trial, they will try their best to reach an agreement. With an agreement, the process becomes uncontested and is less expensive. But the moment both spouses have contentious issues, the case has a potential of dragging on. The more it drags, the more it will cost in terms of attorney fees. Agreeing on contentious issues will save costs.

In some cases, however, it becomes difficult for the two partners to agree on contentious matters. In such a case, the process will have to get to trial so that each partner gets a lawyer to represent them. This is where you need to figure out the next move to finance the marriage annulment. A good rule of thumb involves blending traditional and non-traditional methods.

In most cases, traditional funding of divorces is through cash. Therefore, you need to see whether you have a savings account with easy access to facilitate easy payments of attorney fees and other related costs. You can also consider getting cash from the checking account to take care of joint divorce costs. In most cases, couples are served with restraining orders from depleting any joint assets.

More attorneys are starting to accept credit card payments these days. However, this is not the wisest financial option for couples. To begin with, credit card payments attract very high-interest rates. This will just help to make the annulment more expensive. As if that is not enough, most of the financial experts will tell you to pay your credit card debt prior to filing for separation of marriage.

It is not uncommon to find people funding their divorces using retirement accounts. However, financial experts advise against this plan unless you are sure of making alternative retirement plans when the time comes. Further still, withdrawing money from this account is charged a ten percent penalty as well as regular income tax.




About the Author: