Finding Your Way Using Divorce Mediation
When clients begin making decisions regarding ending their marriage, they often feel as if they are entering a deep, dark woods with no path, flashlight, or map.
Many express a wish that they could understand all of the things they need to discuss in order to prepare and not be surprised.
Divorce Mediation Leads the Way
On one hand, knowing everything that needs to be discussed is useful. On the other hand, I caution my clients not to try to figure out everything before we get started. Kitchen table conversations often end up emotional and scary. I encourage clients to think about things but not to negotiate anything. I explain that I am their guide in the woods, and that it is actually more efficient and gentler to let me help them navigate the discussion.
The following is a comprehensive list of items that need to be discussed so that the final Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) is thorough and comprehensive. Keep in mind other issues often arise that are not listed here.
Parenting and Schedule
- Telling the children about living separately
- Children’s Bill of Rights When Parents Divorce
- The daily parenting plan; when the day begins and ends
- Timeline for living separately
- Holidays: When do they begin and end and how celebrated
- Vacation: How many and how selected
- Sick days: How will the children be cared for
- Hospitalization of child or parent: How it will be handled
- Childcare: How to select
- Transportation: How are the children transported
- Introducing children to significant others
Legal Custody of Children
- Joint custody vs shared custody vs sole custody
- Designation of primary residential parent
- Decision making: Which are joint decisions and which are made by each parent individually
- Children’s birth certificates, passports, and other legal documents
- Permission to travel with the children
- Access to the children when not parenting
- Expectations regarding religious traditions and customs
- Death of either parent
- Relocation of a parent
- Surnames and parent designation of Mom and Dad
- Pet custody and expenses
Child Support
- Organizing Child Support in Divorce-Part 1
- Organizing Child Support in Divorce-Part 2
- New York State Child Support Guidelines
- Proration: Percentage of income of each parent compared to total family income
- When child support begins
- How child support will be paid
- Documentation of income
- Self-employed parent versus a W-2 employee parent
- Child care, health insurance, and uninsured medical expenses
- Other expenses for kids such as extra-curricular expenses and milestone events
- Pre-college private school costs: Tuition, room/board, books, other expenses
- College-related costs: Tuition, room/board, books, other expenses
- Frequency and circumstances for review/modification of child support
The House
- Calculating equity
- How to share the equity
- Removing names from or keeping names on mortgages and titles
- Whether to sell the house
- Funding the house if selling to the other parent
- Sole occupancy of house
- When to live separately
- If someone dies while house is jointly titled and mortgaged
Other Assets
- Documentation of all assets
- Retirement funds, stocks, mutual funds, etc.
- Defined pensions: How to divide
- Cars: Titles, registrations, and loans
- Household Items: How to distribute and value
- Define separate property
- Valuation dates
- College funds
- A business owned by either or both spouses
Debts
- Credit cards
- Student loans
- Car loans
- Bankruptcy
- Effect of divorce on credit and your credit report
- Shared or separate liability
Spousal Maintenance (Alimony)
- Temporary Spousal Maintenance vs post-divorce maintenance
- How much and for how long
- Spousal maintenance guidelines
- Tax implications
- Conditions of terminating or modifying
Miscellaneous
- Changing your last name
- Health insurance for the adults
- Life insurance: Beneficiary designation, for how long
- Taxes: Head of household, dependency allowances, and child tax credit
- Future tax audits and liability
- Wills, health care proxy and power of attorney updates
- Religious annulment
- Resolving future conflicts via changes to the separation agreement
- Social security
Mediation and Divorce Process
- Legal separation or divorce: What’s the difference
- Designation of the plaintiff and defendant in the legal paperwork
- Fees and resources to process the MOU
- Attorney review
- How to pay mediation and divorce fees
Divorce Is Complicated
Going through it with the guidance of an experienced divorce mediator allows you settle all these issues and more quickly, peacefully, privately, and at lower cost. Contact me for a complimentary initial consultation.
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