In my last article, I relayed the story of a divorcing husband who’d made back-of-the-envelope separate-property-tracing calculations about the value of his pension. His soon-to-be ex-wife was my client.
Divorce is hard. In many cases, it’s brutal. I know. I’m not only a CPA, a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER® professional, and a Certified Divorce Financial Analyst® professional who provides divorce financial counseling for affluent women like you. I’m also divorced.
In all the articles I’ve written, I’ve never drilled down on the financial issues of cars in divorce. Here, I will. They’re a part of virtually every marriage, and thus must get divided, as community property, when the marriage dissolves.
There is no way to sugar-coat this: Spousal maintenance is a ticking clock. Once you’re divorced, there is a carved-in-stone date at which it will end. That flow of funds will stop. The spigot will close.
You know the law. Things like gifts and inheritances are separate, not community, property. If things were only so simple. It’s hard to think of a divorce case in which the separate and community funds were not eventually commingled, thus necessitating the topic of this article: Separate property tracing.
With a headline like “Don’t die on the hill of child support,” you’d think I was a callous individual, a Scrooge-like child-hater.
Know what a 529 Plan is? If you do, read on. If you don’t, read on. Quickly, a 529 Plan account is one that you create for your kids, to help them pay for college when they’re older.
Quick question: An affluent woman calls your office. She’s interested in retaining you as her attorney in her upcoming divorce. What’s the very first thing your front office person asks her?
