Hiring the best divorce attorney in Nashville is not all you need. While an attorney is trained to handle the legal aspects of your divorce, they have no specific financial training. You wouldn’t have your attorney read your x-ray, so why would you entrust them with your financial future when that is NOT their area of expertise?

Training In Divorce Finances?

Ask your TN attorney what training and experience she or he has in finance and their answer may surprise you. Did you know that most attorneys require their clients to sign a waiver which releases their legal counsel from the liability of giving financial or tax advice? For your own peace of mind, you need an advocate who is trained to handle the financial issues of divorce. This is our area of expertise. We will educate you and your TN attorney so you know what to ask for to meet your unique needs.

Your Financial Info + Our Expertise = Results

Our company uses your financial information, combined with our unique technology and expertise, to demonstrate how various settlement packages can be more or less favorable to you, both today AND tomorrow. We consider household budgets, pension evaluations, child support, alimony, assets, debts, tax consequences, legal information and many other items during our analysis. The information and options we provide will assist you and your attorney in structuring a fair and equitable settlement package in Tennessee and beyond.

If you keep the Nashville house, do you have sufficient monthly income to pay the household maintenance, taxes, insurance, unexpected repairs and other expenses? Unfortunately, the wife is frequently forced to sell the house a couple of years after divorce because she cannot afford to maintain it.

Have you put together a detailed monthly household budget? Our monthly budget has 140 items. How many items are in your budget? Did you include the deductible for your health insurance, painting the exterior of your house or having tree limbs trimmed? Under-estimating your budget will likely result in requesting too little alimony. Calculating expenses can be overwhelming, even for a spouse who routinely handles the family finances. Women who have not played a role in the financial decisions face an even more daunting task. We can help you estimate monthly expenses and create a comprehensive budget. Our analysis allows for annual increases in the cost of living and inflation. This is essential if you plan on requesting alimony for more than one year.

Typically, the wife keeps the TN house and the husband keeps the IRA, cash and other investments. In that scenario, the dollar value of both may be equivalent — today. Tennessee real estate however, typically increases in value only 2–3% per-year compared to an IRA, which typically increase in value about 8% (tax free) per-year. In 10 years, the value of an IRA of $250,000 will be approximately $540,000. The TN house value will not have doubled in 10 years but the house has also had taxes, insurance and maintenance expenses during that time. So, what seemed like a fair split of assets wasn’t and it took 10 years for that to become clear. We can help you review your options and understand the long-term financial impact of your decisions. Review our case study for more information on why a 50/50 division of assets may not be fair in TN and beyond.

While the family home used to be the single largest investment for most Nashville families, retirement plans have now become the more critical issue. This is especially true for those Nashville families who have little equity in their home, or for wives who will not have the ability to add significant amounts of income to their plan each year. We can help you evaluate existing IRAs and other retirement plans. If your husband typically saves $25,000 per year for his retirement plan, it will only take him four years to replenish $100,000. If you are just returning to work, and saving $2,500 for retirement each year, it will take you 40 years to save $100,000. This example demonstrates why you need to carefully review any retirement funds and consider asking for these funds in your Tennessee settlement package.