Tips For Planning 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.

When people are talking about marriage annulment and finances, they are typically discussing dividing the property, child support, and alimony. Nonetheless, there is another issue touching on finances that mostly gets overlooked. It is important to figure out how to meet expenses for the attorney, plus filing costs relating to your case. This is particularly when barely making ends meet. Sometimes most of the assets are tied to the annulment process.

It should be noted that not all divorces are alarming in terms of financial requirements. Some people have gone through super cheap divorces that only cost a few hundreds of dollars. Some do not even need lawyers for such a process. It becomes a do it yourself marriage annulment. But in situations where the process costs thousands of dollars, you want to have a financial alternative in advance.

One of the best ways to ensure your separation is less complex is by having an uncontested process. Try and see whether you and your spouse can come to an agreement minus going to trial. This is going to make the separation less expensive than having a contested process. Contested divorces can drag on and result in unmanageable attorney fees. Agree with your spouse on most major issues to save costs.

In situations where uncontested divorces cannot work, it would mean figuring out the next course of action. You need to determine whether using traditional means can finance the process. If not, it would compel you to find other options. The best way would be doing a mix of both traditional and non-traditional means. Below are a few of the options you can consider to finance the annulment.

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.

You can also use money from retirement accounts to pay for the marriage annulment. Financial experts are also against this choice since withdrawing the cash attracts regular taxes from relevant authorities. This is beside losing that money upon reaching retirement age.




About the Author: