Besides it being highly emotional, divorce also tends to be expensive. If this is the first time you are going through it, you must be asking, how much does a divorce cost, right?
It’s hard to give a hard number as the price varies depending on plenty of factors such as your location, your divorce lawyers, duration of the divorce proceeding and plenty of other things.
While it’s hard to tell how much you should look to spend on divorce, there are several ways to reduce the amount. Some of these ways include:
Avoid a trial
One factor that makes the divorce process expensive and tedious is having to go through the trial process. While you might have the impression that you will get more from the process, you often end up spending too much than you should.
Instead of going through the trial process, make the process easy by going the mediation route. Here you work with your spouse and a mediator and agree on child support, spousal support, division of property, and the other sensitive areas of your divorce.
If you are having a problem communicating with your partner, you can go the collaborative divorce route. Here you work with your attorneys and reach an agreement. While it will be a little expensive than a mediation divorce, it will be much cheaper than going through the trial process.
Use associates and paralegals if possible.
If you should have an attorney by your side, but the case isn’t too serious, you can hire a paralegal or associate. This is for obvious reasons. Paralegals and associates charge much lower than partners, which will see you save a lot of money.
To find the paralegals and associates, you need to research the legal companies in your area and find the ones with many associates and paralegals. When you visit these companies, ask to work with the legal assistants or paralegals instead of the partners.
Keep your financial records in order.
One of the most expensive parts of the divorce process is the “discovery” process. This is because your attorney has to go through a lot of financial information and filter out the important and the less important ones.
To cut this cost and make your work and that of the attorney easy, ensure that you properly organize your financial records including tax returns, bank statements, and other documents.
This calls for you to do the dirty work instead of letting the attorney do it. You need to visit the bank, hire an accountant, and do any other thing to have the necessary financial records in order.
Stay away from meaningless fights.
Due to the emotional nature of divorce, some couples pick meaningless fights. For example, you will find some fighting over who gets the car wheel.
As you can guess, the longer you can’t agree with your spouse, the longer you will drag your case and the more you will pay for it.
The best way out is to end your case as soon as possible by agreeing to compromise on the minute details. For example, if your partner spends 30 minutes more with the kids every week, you can overlook this and work it out later.
There you have it
It’s impossible to tell the exact amount of money you can spend on divorce but you can put a number of measures in place to reduce the costs.
The mediation route is always the easiest and cheapest way to get a divorce but if you have a hire a lawyer, ensure that you hire the best divorce lawyers Fairfax VA. This way, you are sure that you will get expert legal advice.
