Reducing Your Divorce Costs

May 31, 2018 Posted in Divorce

Divorce can be an expensive process, and many couples find themselves facing financial hardship due to the fact they must end their marriage. Divorce costs can include not just court fees and legal fees, but also expenditures to pay experts if necessary due to the circumstances of the divorce. For example, if one spouse is suspected of hiding assets, hiring a forensic accountant may become necessary, thus resulting in extra costs.

While ending a marriage inherently has some costs associated with it, couples do not have to choose to make the process of dissolving their union a very costly endeavor. In fact, if you work with the right Dallas family attorney and you and your soon-to-be ex are both committed to having an affordable divorce, you should be able to ensure your total divorce bill is relatively low.

How to Reduce the Costs of Divorce

One of the best ways to reduce the cost of divorce is to have an uncontested divorce and to come to an agreement on issues outside of court. The more issues you have to litigate in court, the more time it will take to prepare a case and the greater the expense. If you and your ex can simply come to a consensus on the key issues in your divorce, you can craft your own divorce settlement and the expenditures associated with formally dissolving your marriage will be just a fraction of what a litigated divorce would have cost you.

Of course, coming to a consensus isn't always easy and many couples struggle to do it. Bringing in a third-party mediator can be invaluable because mediators can help to facilitate communication so the process of reaching a compromise becomes simpler. Mediators don't make decisions for you, but they help to guide discussions to make it easier for you to find areas of consensus so you are better able to reach a settlement that works for everyone involved.

Being realistic is also essential when you hope to get divorced as affordably as possible. You need to have some idea of what your rights would be if you went to court to litigate on an issue. For example, if you make unreasonable demands about custody, division of property, or spousal support, your ex likely won't agree to them and you could end up with a more costly litigated divorce. The judge won't just give in to what you want but will instead apply the law to try to craft a divorce settlement. This settlement may leave everyone less happy than if they'd compromised – so you could end up worse off due to unrealistic expectations that made mediation impossible.

If your goal is to get a low-cost divorce which is likely to result in a better divorce settlement for you and your loved ones, you should get help from a Dallas family attorney who can assist you in understanding the law, who can help you during mediation or other divorce settlement negotiations, and who can represent you in court if necessary to get your fair share of time with the kids and marital assets.  To find out more about the assistance we can offer, give us a call today.