Divorce Support Forums: discuss detailed finances/settlement before atty?

Go on zillow, claim your house and correct the facts. If you've got so much equity that a refi will be easy for you to pay off, understand that SHE (or her lawyer) will want HALF of that equity, so the loan to pay HER off will not be quite so easy for you. So you want to make certain Zillow is as accurate as it can be. If the Zillow amount is closer to the actual equity in the house, maybe she won't make you sell it or pay her for half of it.

On the pension, the QDRO does not require actual calculations, just instructions on how to calculate... and it's the instructions that are pricey. The calculations are done by teh pension administrator. Basically, you get a court order that tells your pension administrator, "this person now owns a portion of that pension. The portion is half of whatever accrued between the dates of 1-1-01 (marriage date) and 12-12-08 (divorce date), plus any investment interest on those amounts since that time. Please take that and split it up accordingly." Your pension administrator will then do the split, which should not incur any charges. That portion of it now becomes HER pension, and though the rules on it are tied to YOUR employment and whatever rules you have, SHE becomes the owner of it and can direct anyone she wants to become the beneficiary if she dies (like her sister or nephews or whoever). Generally, though, most people do not take a payout of their pension which would allow for death benefits, so if she dies early it all goes away. If she truly believes that she's going to die before she would be entitled to any benefits, it woudl be the right thing to do to simply not split the pension. If you truly believe she's going to die early, it would be the right thing to do, to figure out how much of a pension she WOULD receive, and offer to pay her that as spousal maintinance during retirement rather than split your pension up, which maintenance would be terminated upon her death, and that would save you from losing her portion of your pension. PLUS, NEITHER of you would ahve to pay for a QDRO.

The danger of this is in acting like your own pension fund for her, so if your pension goes bankrupt or something, you might still end up owing her... on the up side, if your pension and retirement benefits skyrocketed and you got bonuses & stuff, your alimony amount would ALSO be fixed and you'd bekeeping the whole thing rathr than having given up half.

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