Going through a divorce can be an extremely challenging time in anyone’s life. It can be time consuming, emotionally draining and difficult to embrace the unknown. This can be even more challenging for high net worth individuals with a lot of assets on the line.
There isn’t a perfect rubric for how to best navigate through a high net worth divorce, but you can make sure that you’re prepared. Putting together a plan of how to approach the situation can make a difficult situation easier and reduce the stress commonly associated with divorce.
Check your emotions
It’s no secret that divorces can be highly emotional. This is especially true for wealthy individuals who have a lot at risk. With so much at stake, it’s important to keep your emotions in check and make decisions with a clear headspace. It’s very easy to have your judgment clouded by raw emotions, but this can truly only make matters worse.
It may sound cold, but it’s often better to treat divorce like a business dissolution than to allow your emotions to get the best of you.
Get organized
Now is the time to get your ducks in a row. You ideally want to get all your important documents put together in a manner that is easily accessible. This may include financial documents such as W-2 forms, bank statements, tax returns, wills, insurance policies, credit card statements, paycheck stubs and anything else you consider important to your settlement. For people with a lot of assets, this process may be tedious, but it’s critical to have everything in order to make this process run smoothly.
This also is a good time to begin preparing settlement documents and parenting plans. The more organized and prepared you are heading into the divorce, the more likely it is that you can handle anything that comes your way.
Value your assets
Do you have multiple homes and cars or have significant investments? Are there any valuable collectibles in your stash? Make sure you get all your assets by valued by a professional. Have everything appraised so that you know exactly how much everything is worth.
This should include both items you owned before your marriage as well as the property you bought together with your spouse. You want to know the value of everything, so that you can determine the best possible way to split up your assets.
Keep things off social media
This is an especially important step in contemporary society. With social media and technology, it’s very easy for words to spread quickly. It’s never a good idea to make your divorce public because your words could be used against you in the future. There simply is no need to put up a status on Facebook berating your soon-to-be ex-spouse or Tweet private information about your divorce. It’s better to keep things private so that you can maintain control of your own situation.
There is no easy way out of a divorce especially when you have a number of assets at stake but preparing yourself accordingly will help make the process as simple as possible.
