How to Reduce the Cost of Your Divorce
Posted By Irene C. Olszewski, Esq. on November 18, 2010
As I was packing up to move my law office, I was amazed at how much stuff I had accumulated in the 8 years I occupied my old office. That got me to thinking about several of my past divorce cases and how the battles over who was going to end up with the “stuff” was overwhelmingly the most costly part of those divorces.
In one case, both parties were blindly attached to every possession in their marital home and neither wanted to part with anything. The other lawyer and I tried in vain to make them both understand that if they were getting a divorce and starting separate lives in separate homes, they would ultimately have to decide what items each of them would take from the house. It wouldn’t be possible for both of them to take the same things. It sounded like a simple concept to us. Sadly, our clients didn’t see it that way.
Unfortunately, the couple owned a lot of stuff. Big stuff, little stuff, expensive stuff and less expensive stuff, old stuff and new stuff — and every kind of stuff in between. I’m pretty sure they qualified as bona fide collectors of stuff. Card carrying members of the International Association of Stuff Collectors. Either way, they had lots of stuff to split up.
After each of them meticulously inventoried the contents of the marital home, they presented the lawyers with their respective lists of “must haves” and “will trade” items. On the “must have” lists, both parties listed nearly the entire contents of the home. The “will trade” list consisted of a few items that would probably not even sell in a tag sale. We were in trouble.
The couple argued over forks and knives (not silver, mind you, but ordinary flatware that could be replaced for under thirty dollars in any department store). They fought over who would walk away with the themed party goods (paper birthday plates, Halloween napkins, New Years Eve noisemakers and other assorted party supplies). The battle raged on for days over the collection of shot glasses obtained from shared vacation destinations over a 20 year period. You get the idea.
Both lawyers reminded our clients over and over that it would cost them both less to simply divide the items between them and replace whatever they didn’t end up keeping than it would be to pay for lawyer fees to argue in court over the items. Sadly, it was to no avail.
Ultimately, a very annoyed judge ordered the parties to sit with a mediator to determine the division of their personal stuff. They both insisted on having their lawyers present at the mediation sessions, meaning that they each paid lawyer fees and they also shared the mediator’s fees. Do the math.
After 6 mediation sessions of approximately 2 hours each, they finally reached a settlement. Neither was happy. By the time they went through the mediation, they had already spent countless dollars arguing over items that could have been replaced at a fraction of the cost.
The moral of tonight’s post is:
If you want to reduce the cost of your divorce, go buy new paper birthday plates for 10 bucks and let your soon-to-be ex have the ones from the marital house.
————————————
Disclaimer: The information, comments and links posted on the blog do not constitute legal advice. I will not respond to any specific legal questions in the comments section of this blog. Read my entire disclaimer.
copyright 2010 Irene C. Olszewski
Comments
Leave a Reply
Please note: Comment moderation is currently enabled so there will be a delay between when you post your comment and when it shows up. Patience is a virtue; there is no need to re-submit your comment.