Picture this. You live in a relatively affluent jurisdiction, like Howard County, Montgomery, Anne Arundel, Baltimore or Carroll. You think you might be getting a divorce. Or, you know you want to separate and divorce, and you want to start financially planning before your spouse gets wise to what you are doing. Or, you fear your spouse is about to drain the accounts. Or, your spouse already did.
There are a few schools of thought when it comes to planning for your divorce. The first thought is why bother, because everything is going to come out in the end. The second thought is to grab whatever you can now because you are going to need it when the lawyers get involved. A third thought is to covertly plan for as long as you possibly can, with your spouse being none the wiser. A fourth is a bit more seedy-lie, cheat and steal to put as much money and assets away as possible and then deny their existence during the divorce.
Perhaps the most popular forms of divorce planning are the Pre-Nuptial Agreement and the Post-Nuptial Agreement.
More often than not, however, when something goes wrong in a marriage, setting the stage for a divorce, spouses begin to think about how to divorce plan.
THIS IS THE TIME TO CONSULT WITH AN EXPERIENCED DIVORCE ATTORNEY! Why try to figure it out on your own? The experienced family law attorney can walk you through how to protect assets, income, property and more. Should you keep contributing to your retirement plan, knowing that your spouse may be getting half of it? Should you drain your home equity line of credit to ensure that your spouse does not do so first? Same answer with asset accounts and other accounts.
If you have beloved property and you do not want to come home to find it broken or missing, perhaps you should make sure it isn’t there. Some spouses remove possessions they know the other spouse wants, just to use as leverage.
Just remember this. Whatever covert actions you take now could always come back to bit you in the end. I have heard it all: secreting money or property to another family member, buying tens of thousands of dollars of train tickets and then refunding them after the divorce is final, buying forever stamps, paying off a mortgage with an asset or account to deprive your spouse of liquid cash. The list of tricks and tips goes on and on.
Did I say you should consult an experienced divorce attorney? Yeah, do that. Now.