What is Fair for Finances in Divorce?

Hey everybody, welcome to Juba Forensics PLLC. We're going to talk through what exactly is fair when it comes to finances in a divorce. Finances in divorce can be very can be tricky, it can be complicated. It depends on what you and your spouse have, if there was any prenup agreements, what you have jointly, what you have separately, what state you live in. There's not a great way for me to give you one list that applies to everyone, especially because I am not a lawyer. I am a forensic accountant. But I do, being a forensic accountant, working on divorce cases, I have seen the way some things get divided out.

I'm not always privy to how things end with the official breakdown of what assets go where, but I've been through a divorce myself, so I do have some some background knowledge as to what that looks like. Now, it's not possible for me to give you a specific state-by-state example of each and everything and every single asset that you might have jointly or separately and what that could look like.

I highly recommend you have a team of professionals on your side. And that team of professionals can be a wide range of people, that can be lawyers, that can be private investigators, that can be forensic accountants, that can be insert anybody else that you may need on your side, business valuation experts, you name it, to help you determine the best way to split your assets based on the state that you live in and the assets that you own. There will be some negotiation as to what do you do with property? What do you do with houses? Vacation homes, what do you do? Bank accounts sometimes can be a little more cut and dry. Sometimes even then that may not be very cut and dry. But what do you do with pensions? What do you do with other retirement accounts that you may have? Do you and your spouse just each keep your separate retirement accounts or do you bring that together to the table and divide it down the line?

What if one of you didn't work as long as the other one did? Do you then have to pay some type of restitution for that if you were raising children while your spouse was working? There are so many nuances. So, what I wanted to talk through today is there is not a cut and dry easy way to explain finances and divorce for everyone. But the most important thing that I have highlighted quite a few times throughout some of these YouTube videos is if you come to the table with a list of your assets, that is going to make the process that much easier for you because this is not an easy process.

And even if you are having a relatively smooth divorce, there's no fighting, none of that. It's still not easy. It brings up a lot of emotions. Money is hard to talk about in general, which I know I bring that up quite a bit as well, but the more you say it, these are things that I didn't really realize until I was going through my own divorce, how difficult it can be to have money conversations, even though my divorce itself wasn't very hostile. There weren't kids involved. We didn't have rental homes. We didn't have a whole bunch of assets to try to divide up. It was two bank accounts and a house to sell. Pretty straightforward.

We each kept our respective cars. I live in the state of North Carolina. Going through that divorce, everything got split down the line for us. We had no kids involved. We both worked the full time when we were married. We both had full-time jobs. So, there was no alimony. There was no child support to calculate. Relatively cut and dry, but there was still fighting over money. There was still hard feelings over, well, what if they're lying? What if they're hiding something? What if this is happening in the background? That all still occurred even though everything was pretty cut and dry for us and nobody was hiding anything. So say all that to say, these conversations are hard, but the more information you come to the table with, the better prepared you're going to be, the more fair it's going to be, not just for you, but for your ex-spouse, soon to be ex-spouse, and for your children if children are involved as well.

Because if you don't know what you have, how can you advocate for yourself with dividing that equally? I I personally don't see how you can do that if you're not sure what the assets are you're even dividing. How do you negotiate that and say, "You keep that account, I'll keep this account. We divide this one down the middle." Now, a lawyer is going to help you with some of that process. A lawyer is going to help you determine what legally can and cannot happen in your state. When it comes to retirement accounts, maybe accounts you each had before you got married, joint accounts that you've had the whole time. If one of you worked and didn't work, a lawyer in your state will be able to walk you through those nuances, but a forensic accountant will be able to help you make sure you have all of those assets accounted for to have those negotiations and discussions. It may be cut and dry. Maybe both of you were involved with your finances from day one, and you know, you only have these four or five accounts between retirement accounts, checking, and savings.

That's great, and that's amazing. Just make sure you have it written down. Make sure you have access to everything and you know what the ending balances were, when your separation started, who has a card to what exactly, that's all going to be really helpful information. But sometimes if you were the person in the relationship that maybe was not involved with the finances for whatever reason, doesn't really matter what the reason is.

If you were not involved in the finances, you may not remember that your soon to be ex-spouse took out another savings account, started this money market account over here, got this one CD over here. You may not realize that. You may have forgotten. Maybe they told you. Maybe they didn't tell you. It's not always malicious. They maybe weren't trying to sneakily hide something from you on purpose, but also maybe they were. You never know. And so the more information you have, the more you'll be able to make sure that it is a fair process in the end.

Because I feel like while other emotions are involved, other things happened in your marriage and throughout your divorce, the money piece should be mostly cut and dry with we have $100,000 and here's how we're going to negotiate to split that. Doesn't always come up come out cut and dry when feelings start getting involved. And if one spouse walked out on the other, cheated on the other, insert whatever else happened, then money becomes the fight of, well, I deserve more because you acted crazy. That is not really how that should be. But sometimes that's how that plays out, especially if there are kids involved. So, I'm not trying to go too far down into nuances today, but the topic I wanted to talk about is what what do finances look like in that divorce process? How do you decide what is fair? And unfortunately, there is not a great cut and dry answer that applies to everybody.

I can't tell you and I don't think any lawyer can even tell you that across the whole United States and the whole world if you're married and you get a divorce everything gets split 50/50. Cuz that is not the case. Not the case depending on where you live. Not the case depending on work situations. Not the case depending on kids that may be involved. Other assets that may be involved. Maybe you have two or three vacation homes and instead of selling them off for cash, you decide one person takes one, the other person takes two. And then the one that only got one vacation home, depending on their value, gets more cash than the other can get very nuanced.

It can get very complicated and you need not only to know what you have coming to the table, but you also need a team of professionals on your side. And those professionals, I don't think I can highlight it enough, include a forensic accountant. I've done some videos before. A generic CPA is not the same thing as a forensic accountant. A divorce attorney cannot do the same thing as a forensic accountant. A PI cannot do the same thing as a forensic accountant.

We all do something very different, very nuanced, and niched. Can a CPA do some things? Absolutely. Can a divorce attorney guide you down the start of this path and help you make some important decisions? Absolutely. But they cannot do what a true forensic accountant can do for you. And that is to make sure that the assets you need accounted for are accounted for and quantified and written up in a way that can be presented to a court and actually be upheld in court and hopefully not torn apart. So, we kind of mushed a whole bunch of topics in here together, but I really just wanted to walk through.

There's not an easy fair way to split finances and divorce. So, yes, you may have heard about your cousin that lives in another state who had to do this with her divorce with her finances. That may not apply to you. Get a good solid professional team and know what your assets are coming to the table. I do have some free resources that can help you determine what where are your assets, what are your assets, what is the total dollar amount. There are free resources available on my website, on my YouTube channel. Please watch and learn and do what you can on your own and know that you may not be able to do it on your own and you may need a team of people around you to help you make those decisions and find what it is that you deserve for those assets. So, I will cut it off now so I don't continue to ramble. I feel like I've got the point across for you guys. Know what you're worth. Know what your marital assets are worth. Come to the table with that when you start the negotiation process. Have that power in your hand. It will make all the