Tip: Protecting your Assets

Ok, remembering I'm not a lawyer or anything, I thought I'd share with you what I learned about protecting your assets when getting a divorce.

You don't want to be the one to take all the money and run. I call that stealing. But you don't want them to do it either, right? You don't want to be the one left in a lurch.

So what do you do? What can you do? Keep records of how much is in each of your accounts and what services are already paid for. Watch your bank account, insurance, cell phone, etc. etc. etc. If your spouse drains the accounts, you need to know so that 1) You have that information for legal purposes and 2) so that you don't get stuck with any overdraft fees or anything like that.

I personally got stuck with a fee that was taken out monthly, but because the account had been drained I also got a penalty on it. :(

I have a friend that said she took pictures of the whole house when she and her husband divorced. She was trying to document everything for proof of having had it. I don't know if this works, but it sounds like a good idea to me. I not only took pictures but made a list of everything and their estimated worth.

If you are splitting up the cars, think about splitting up the keys, too.

Keep documents or copies of documents. Simply: know what you have. Not everyone can rely on their spouse to really give them half of everything.

Unfortunately it doesn't always work like that.

Think about things like: insurance policies, bank accounts, business accounts, wills, etc.

And as always- Document EVERYTHING.

I know this is a very vague post. But my point is just to have you thinking about things. You don't want to be fighting over the assets, you want it documented and clear what there is and what there isn't.