Are you wondering what important documents you need in order to file for divorce and to have a divorce granted?
Hi, I’m Marie Drake of The Drake law firm. And today, I’m going to talk to you about what you need to put together in order to have your divorce granted. What you need to know is that in order to obtain a divorce in Colorado, you need to have full transparency and exchange all information about your assets, your income, and your debts. And the court is going to require that the two spouses exchange that information and also file some compliance documents with the court, including a sworn financial affidavit, so that the court knows that nothing is hidden and full information has been exchanged. You always have to show proof of income and assets and exchange those documents. And in particular, if there’s any request for spousal maintenance, also known as alimony,and for child support. So remember that you have to gather together three years of tax returns, three months of pay stubs, and also any information on assets that might produce income, like, I don’t know, a rental house or an investment account that’s throwing off some money every month. And we all know those aren’t really doing that in 2022, but we’ll get over it. Another thing you have to exchange is all of your most recent debt statements. That’s all credit card statements, that’s all mortgage statements, and car loan statements. And really, I often encourage people to go ahead and obtain a credit report so that they really know what’s going on, and also just in case to make sure there’s no fraud or anything. Now the debt is marital if it’s incurred during the marriage, generally. However, an exception might be that you’ve separated and your husband is now taking his mistress on five-star cruises and racking up debt doing that. The court would probably award that kind of debt to him as his sole and separate debt. So know that going into it, but you still have to disclose everything. It’s pretty common for one spouse to be the one who pays all the bills and manages the bank accounts, etc., and one spouse to be in the dark. If you’re the spouse in the dark, make sure that your attorney requests all of the documents I listed earlier in the video because you’re still going to need to have all the information, and you’re definitely going to need to learn how to manage your own finances. So we always recommend that people start ramping up on what’s my budget going to be after the divorce, how am I going to live, and start getting familiar with their numbers. Finances are a really important aspect of divorce. And many, many divorces come about because of financial situations between parties. If you have any questions about finances during divorce, give us a call here at The Drake Law Firm. We’re standing by and we’re happy to help.
