If you and your spouse have gone through counseling and reached a mutual conclusion that your marriage is no longer working, there are some financial steps that you need to take to protect yourself in your divorce.
Get Copies of All Financial Documents
Work together, if possible, with your spouse so that both of you have copies of all important financial documents that relate to the assets that you have accumulated together. Depending on your financial situation and where you are at in life, this may be a small number of documents or this may be a large number of documents.
You want to gather information on all bank accounts you shared, investments you made together, retirement accounts you share together, and any property that you own together. All of this information will help you and your spouse decide how to fairly divide up your belongings and money as you move forward with your divorce.
Run Your Credit Report
Have both you and your spouse run your credit reports. This is a great way to make sure that neither of you is forgetting about any shared debt that you have. It also lets you know what debts your spouse has as well, which is important as you may be responsible and obligated for your spouse's debt, regardless of if you know about it. Running a credit report is a smart way to make sure that you and your spouse address all debt that was accumulated during your marriage.
Work Together
As much as you can, sit down with your spouse and work together at splitting up items. First, allow both of you to take and claim items of personal significance, such as your grandma's jewelry or an antique car that was left to one of you by their grandparents. Try to not get petty about this stuff; this is just the beginning.
From there, try to work together to figure out who keeps what assets as well as what assets you will sell and use for debt management. The more you and your spouse can work together and come up with mutually agreed upon ways to split up your belongings, money, and debt, the easier the process will be and the less it will cost you when you two finally sit down with your lawyers and make the splitting of your finances and your lives formal.
Working together, although hard, will save you money in the long run and is the best way to ensure that things are split as you two want them to be, not how the court orders them to be. For more information or advice, contact a divorce attorney.
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