Making Informed Decisions In Your Divorce

Going through a divorce is one of the most stressful life-changing events you may ever experience. The need to make good decisions can seem overwhelming. However, when those are informed decisions, you can feel in control of the process instead of feeling like the process is controlling them.

How to Make Informed Financial Decisions During Divorce

The first step toward making informed decisions is to determine your future goals. Important steps in making informed decisions include:

Divorce and Making decisions
  • Understanding the law. Texas is a community property state. This means that everything a married couple accumulates during their marriage belongs equally to each of them. This includes assets and liabilities.
  • Identify community property and identify what is separate property. Property a spouse owned prior to the marriage remains their own separate property if it has not been co-mingled and is not community property. If one spouse receives an inheritance or a personal injury award, those assets belong solely to the spouse who received them.
  • Use Professionals to get a Complete Picture. Financial planners and other professionals make sure you have all the information available about your assets and debts. Often, one spouse may be unaware of retirement plans or accounts in the name of the other spouse that are most likely to be community property.

Once you have gathered all your financial information, you will know exactly what your family estate looks like. It is not unusual to be surprised to discover exactly what assets and liabilities you have as a couple.

When we have this information, we can take the financials and plug in different scenarios on different types of divisions so you and your spouse have an idea about what your post-divorce future will look like. This allows you to negotiate with your spouse from a place of knowledge. You can decide together what is best for each of you.

For example, will it be necessary to sell the family home? Can one spouse stay in the family home and the interest in the home be offset by giving the other spouse a higher percentage of the retirement account?

With this knowledge, you can make an informed decision and avoid having a property division forced upon you, a division that might not be in your best interest.

For more information about how Martinez Legal, P.C. can assist you in making informed decisions during the divorce process, call or contact us to arrange for a consultation.