A divorce estate is a series of documents set up in order to secure everything you own (both material and financial) so that whatever happens, this ends up in the place that you want it to.
Not setting up a divorce estate can be dangerous for all parties involved and due to certain policies or loopholes in financial agreements that you may have signed, you could lose all your assets to your ex spouse. Many decide to plan a divorce estate before they even file for a divorce in the first place, and this is included within the financial settlement that determines what goes to whom in the event of a marriage breakdown.
Wills and Property Settlement
It may seem a little morbid, but making a will is an extremely sensible thing to do in the event of a divorce, mainly because you’re splitting your assets between a number of people, and you may not want certain assets to go to your ex spouse and their family. The same goes for property settlement, because if something were to happen to you then your ex-spouse may receive your property by default (if nobody else has been put in place).
In order to set up either of these documents you will need to hire an attorney for both legal advice and help with compiling the actual files. The best thing you can do to prepare for the event of a divorce is put together your receipts and proof of payment for all of your own assets, and be sure that you can prove when they were bought. This way your attorney can put together the evidence and put forward in court (or during a case) the evidence that shows who is the rightful owner. If you do not want the asset, you can then decide who it goes to in the property settlement, or in your will if you wish to keep it until you are deceased.
At the same time as setting up your will, you are advised to go ‘whole-hog’ and decide on other factors that may need to be sorted out in the event of your death. For instance, whether you wish to be an organ donor, or whether you want a DNR (Do Not Resuscitate Order).
Laws to Take Notice Of
If you can prove that you bought a certain item or financial product before you were legally married then by law it is yours. Unfortunately in many cases an ex spouse will claim that a certain item is theirs because nobody can prove that it isn’t. The key here is to keep hold of your receipts for important purchases.
With regards to children, minors are often not legally entitled to any assets bestowed unto them, simply because of their age. In this event, responsibility for the asset will be left to their legal custodian. If this person is your ex-spouse then you may not want them to have access to the asset and this is why it’s very important to specify how your assets, or even alimony that you are liable to pay, is distributed. You may choose to open a bank account for the child, that they can access once they reach the age of 16 or 18.
It’s important to note that even if you do specify where, when and how you want your assets to be distributed, your ex-spouse may still be entitled to certain parts of it. For instance, your retirement benefits. How this is done is decided by the federal government, and you may appeal the end decision, but this is a lengthy and expensive process that may simply not be worth it.