The Gray Divorce Podcast: Episode 27 The Team Approach to Gray Divorce
One of the most important things a person can do when going through divorce is to get educated about the process. Certainly, the divorce attorney plays the primary role in advising you about the legalities of what is, after all, a legal process. But there are other aspects to divorce: financial, emotional, and more.
Putting a divorce team together can be beneficial in many ways. You benefit from the expertise provided by professionals specializing in their own fields. More importantly, you have the confidence to become an active participant in the process and to hopefully make the important financial and emotional decisions with a level head, with all the facts at your disposal.
And, you may be surprised, putting a divorce team together is not as expensive as you might think!
Here are some of the key professionals on the divorce team:
The Divorce Attorney
Research attorneys before you decide to work with one. Some attorneys may limit their practices to a more settlement friendly approach and try to avoid litigation. Other attorneys may choose any dispute resolution model including a much more litigious, aggressive approach.
Know what type of attorney you're looking for. Interview them. Also, get referrals from other potential team members.
The Financial Professional
Listeners of the podcast know that I am a Certified Divorce Financial Analyst. I have the CDFA credential. CDFAs are trained to deal with the financial aspects of divorce. You might consider asking potential advisors how many divorce cases they've worked on? What type of clients do they typically work with? And what type of attorneys do they typically work with?
Of course, CDFA's aren't the only credentialed advisers dealing with financial matters. CPAs specialize in taxation and may be helpful in advising on more complicated tax matters.
Sometimes you will need a business valuation specialist if there is a business asset that needs to be valued in the property settlement.
Mental Health Professionals and Divorce Coaches
Divorce may be the largest financial transaction in your life. You want to try and make these financial decisions with as a level ahead as possible. This is where therapists specializing in helping people go through divorce can be so beneficial.
Divorce coaches can play an important part in helping make the divorce process less overwhelming and scary. They can help you focus and take on an active role in the process, which is likely to help emotionally and financially going forward.
Divorce Lending Professional and Realtors
Certified Divorce Lending Professionals (or CDLP's) are trained to help divorcing persons work with their legal and financial team members to find real estate financing solutions.
CDLPs don’t charge consulting fees and more importantly they understand the language of the lending industry. A divorce lending specialist can work with the divorce attorney to make sure that the language in the agreement meets the needs of future financing.
When the marital home is being sold you can benefit from having a real estate expert on your team to help facilitate the sale of your real property. There are real estate professionals trained in divorce. They hold the designation Certified Divorce Real Estate expert or CDRE. Once again like the divorce lending professional, this is an expert resource that comes with no added cost.
Estate Planning Attorneys
If you've got a Trust, speak to your estate planning attorney about having that updated. The same with any powers of attorney or medical health directives. And of course, update your beneficiaries with the plan or custodian where those assets are held.
Conclusion
Listen to the podcast for a lot more information about how a divorce team may make sense for you.