We live in a credit-heavy society. Nearly everyone owns credit cards and married couples often have a bewildering array of single and joint debts that need to be fairly distributed between the parties in a New York state uncontested divorce.
For each credit card, attorneys must determine the balance owed, the identity of the account holder, and the identity of the person holding liability. You may think the latter two would be the same person, but not always. Consider a credit card in the wife’s name which has an outstanding balance from the purchase of a computer used by the husband. Both parties agree the computer is the husband’s property. Technically she is the cardholder so would assume liability, but they might agree that since he owns then computer, then he will assume the debt as part of the divorce financial settlement.
Facts like this can be noted manually but if you lose track of the details then it can lead to unfair distribution of liabilities. A better option is to use divorce settlement software that not only tracks the debt on the credit card but allows the debt to be divided between the parties by percentage. In the example above maybe the husband would assume only 75% of the debt instead of the entire amount. The final settlement has to take this into account.
Don’t let yourself be limited by the number of lines on a form. If the couple has ten credit cards–not unreasonable when you tally up department store and gas station cards–and the divorce calculator has only five lines for revolving debt, what do you do? It’s better to use software that can take an unlimited number of asset and liability entries so attorneys can view the entire financial picture without missing any details.
Complete and accurate information is a necessity when calculating spousal support and property division. If both attorneys work with the same information then they are more likely to reach an agreement quickly. Use only attorney practice management software designed to accommodate all the details of any divorce, no matter how complicated, to give your client the best settlement options possible.
