We Help You Understand All Your Financial Options
Each divorce is unique and each client has their own needs and level of financial knowledge.
Hoffman Divorce Strategies focuses not only on the accounting for the divorce but financial strategies to improve the quality of the settlement. Services are tailored to your needs and the point you have reached in the divorce process, whether in litigation, mediation or collaboration.
We are trained to work with you as part of a team in litigation, collaboration or as a private financial mediator. We can meet with you, your clients and opposing counsel face to face or virtually using GOTOMEETING™.
Services
For divorcing and post-divorce clients, our services include but are not limited to:
Divorcing clients
Financial Education to help you through your divorce:
- We explain all financial aspects of the pending decisions and help empower each client to make educated decisions throughout the proceedings.
- We give you a clearer view of your financial future. Only then can you approach a legal settlement that fully addresses your financial needs and capabilities. A legal settlement that floats back and forth between attorneys, without the client having a clear understanding of all financial ramifications, can be detrimental, time consuming and expensive. We provide our clients by a thorough knowledge and understanding of the often-complicated financial decisions.
- Working with our client and their attorney, we can forecast the long-term effects of the divorce settlement. This includes details of tax liabilities and benefits. Developing a long-term forecast for our client’s financial situation is far better than a short-term snapshot. Financial decisions must be made that not only take care of immediate family needs, but retirement needs as well.
- Misinformation and misconceptions about the divorce process can be detrimental. Many clients have false expectations that they will be able to secure a divorce settlement allowing them to continue with their accustomed style of living. Financial divorce analysis helps to ensure a good, stable economic future and prevent long-term regret with financial decisions made during the divorce process.
Gathering of Financial Information and Document Preparation
- Gathering financial information & assisting with the preparation of Hearing Officer Intake, Income and Expense Documents, Detailed Descriptive Lists, Traversals and other Court Documents.
- We assist our clients with gathering the necessary information and prepare financial documents that are filed with the court.
- Documenting defensible marital standard of living reports
- We assist our clients with the preparation of reports that accurately represent their ordinary and customary lifestyle expenses.
- Preparing analyses for child support calculations.
- We assist our client and their attorney with the preparation of the calculation.
- We assist self-employed clients with the calculation of income.
- We assist our clients with the preparation of reports that accurately represent the lifestyle of a family when the combined income exceeds the child support income guidelines.
Review of Retirement Plans, Stocks, and Employment Benefits
- Evaluating private and governmental retirement plans.
- We assist our clients and their attorneys with discovering and understanding all retirement plans in which each spouse is a participant.
- We make sure our clients understand the payout and survival options available to them so that they can make an informed choice on how to divide their retirement plans.
- We work with our clients to minimize any taxes payable on the division of these plans.
- We help our clients and their attorneys prepare and file with the plan administrator any necessary specialized documents to divide ERISA and non-ERISA (private, federal, military and state) plans. Without these specialized documents the expected payout from a plan may never be received or may end upon the death of the other spouse.
- Evaluating employee benefit plans.
- We work with our clients to make sure that employee benefit plans are evaluated so that they are included as part of the community or considered when structuring support.
- Evaluating and valuing stock option and restricted stock plans.
- We assist our clients and their attorneys with discovering and understanding all the stock option and restricted stock plans within the community.
- We inform our clients about the payout and ownership options available to them so that they can make an informed choice on how to divide their stock option and restricted stock plans.
Post Divorce Financial Needs
- Projecting post-divorce financial needs.
- We assist our clients with answering questions such as whether it is better to stay in a home or receive other assets and help them develop financial strategies and options that they can bring to the negotiating table.
Long and Short-Term Needs
- Responding to and preparing settlement options that address short and long-term needs.
- We assist our clients in preparing and reviewing settlement options that prevent the divorce process getting from slowing down by uncertainty when settlement options are not understood or financially analyzed.
Death or Disability of an Ex-Spouse
- Life and Disability Insurance Securitization Calculations.
- We inform our clients of their securitization options of support or long term payments to alleviate them from ending on the death or disability of the paying spouse.
- Note Payment Securitization Strategies
- We assist our clients and their attorneys to make sure that any strategies that require the payment of a note over a period of time are securitized.
Support and Property Settlement Agreements
- We assist our clients through the complex retitling requirements of movable assets such as retirement, investment and other movable property accounts.
- We work with our clients to move through a closing the divorce checklist.
Financial Transition to Single Life
- Using the information gathered on lifestyle and forecasts during the divorce process we are well-positioned to assist clients with budgeting and financial planning.
- Assisting with the monitoring of agreements and judgments.