Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:07):
Welcome to forty five Forward with host, journalist and speaker
Ron Roweu. Ron's mission is to make your second half
of life even better than your first. Most of us
are just approaching our half life when we reach the
mid forties, with many productive years ahead. Ron is here
to help prepare us for this kind of longevity by
(00:29):
providing vital strategies to shift the traditional waiting for retirement
model to a continuous, evolving journey of compelling life chapters.
So now please welcome the host of forty five Forward,
Ron row Out.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Welcome everyone to forty five Forward on Bowl Brave TV.
This is your host, Ron Roel. Now, on today's show,
we're dealing with a complicated and emotional topic, great divorce.
What's great divorce? Well, it's probably what you think it is,
which is it's the phenomenon people getting divorced later in life,
generally after fifty, but often sixties and seventies. And the
(01:25):
interesting twists that I've discovered is that while the divorce
rate is probably stayed somewhat stable between forty and fifty percent,
the divorce rate for younger people has been actually declining,
but the divorce rate for older people has actually been
dramatically increasing. So that's the topic for today, which is
(01:45):
about what is great divorce about. We have two distinguished
New York attorneys, Jennifer Kona and Sandra Radna, who will
provide practical and extremely relatable information about this process and
help of how they help silver splitters navigate this complicated transition.
They talked about a lot of things from the both
(02:07):
the divorce side and the estate and planning side and
healthcare side. Lots and lots of information, so there's a
lot to consider. So let's get right to it. Let's
meet my guest, Jennifer Kona and Sandra Radna. Jennifer and Sandra,
welcome to the show.
Speaker 3 (02:24):
Thank you for having us.
Speaker 4 (02:26):
Thanks Ryan, great to see you.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
It's pleasure guys. Yeah, we've had a previous conversation and
there is a lot to discuss, and you guys know
a lot. So I'm really pleased to have you because
you know, this is something people don't talk about, you know,
certainly when you're getting married, you know saying well let
me think what about what about getting divorced? But it's
it's a reality in today's society. So I'm glad to
(02:50):
have you and this is going to be a conversation,
so we'll just go back and forth. It's not going
to be straight Q and A. But why don't we
start off with new Sander. Just give us a little
bit more bad great divorce? And how is it really
different from people getting divorced in the thirties or forties,
And maybe there are there's some common myths about it
or misconceptions. So let's start with you and Jennifer as
(03:12):
I meant to jump in and various things as we
can move along.
Speaker 5 (03:16):
Well, the biggest difference between a divorce and an older
couple as opposed to a younger couple is that they
usually have more assets, they probably have children that are adults,
and things are a little bit different from them. The
reason that I believe the divorce rate is increasing for
people over fifty and decreasing to younger people is that
(03:37):
a lot of younger people don't get married in order to.
Speaker 3 (03:39):
Have children anymore.
Speaker 5 (03:40):
So there's less people getting married, and older people who
are married are realizing that there's life after fifty and
they deserve to be happy and they deserve to have
a life. And even if they're fifty sixty, people are
living into their nineties now, so life isn't over just
because they're over sixty years old. They want to be
(04:01):
able to be happy. So I would think those are
the big differences for why people are getting divorced at
higher rates over fifty.
Speaker 3 (04:09):
And the biggest difference is the assets they have.
Speaker 5 (04:12):
A lot of times when people have adult children and
they're a parent, they've seen your parent is getting remarried.
They're very concerned about what's going to happen to my inheritance,
What's going to happen to what I was supposed to get?
Is this person just going to take my parents' assets?
And I'm sure Jennifer is going to talk a little
bit about how to protect people for that, But I
(04:33):
would say those are the big differences.
Speaker 4 (04:37):
Yeah, And it certainly is a much more complicated situation
just by virtue of having more assets. And obviously we
see a lot more blended families now, you know, we
see because people are living longer, we've got multiple generations,
so the whole thing becomes much more complicated, between elder law,
state planning, planning for long term care needs, the exorbitant
(04:59):
cost of health health care, so the whole thing is
much more complicated, but I definitely agree with you, Sandra,
that people are saying themselves, if I'm going to live
to one hundred, which all of us right here on
this screen are probably going to live to one hundred,
we want to make sure we're happy and there's really
no reason not to be right.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
Yeah, yeah, So we're going to go back between some
bigger pictures and smaller issues. So I think one of
the things that comes up sort of immediately that the
problem deal with Jennifer is just like the practically, like
the the advanced directives, you know, the beneficiary designations, so
(05:35):
you know state plans, you know, like stuff like immediately,
we better change this stuff. So talk about that a little.
Speaker 4 (05:42):
Bit sure, and a lot of people don't think about
that right away. So events directives in case your audience
members don't know, include the power of attorney, healthcare proxy,
and living well. So the power of attorney is where
you name someone to handle finances for you in case
you can't if you're incapacitated or otherwise unable to. So
you want to name someone who can handle finances for you.
(06:05):
Could be banking, real estate transactions, setting up trust for you,
so it could be day to day things or big
picture items. The healthcare proxy, you're naming someone to be
your voice for you as to medical decisions, communicating with
doctors again if you can't, you make your decisions up
until point if you cannot, so it's someone who steps
(06:25):
in at that time. And the living will is where
you set forth what your wishes are as to end
of life care. Do you want artificial nutrition and hydration
heroic measures or are you more in the camp of
if my time has come, let me go. So it's
those kinds of decisions, and at least in New York anyway,
your agents have to be the same. Doctors want only
(06:47):
one person to listen to, so the agent under the
healthcare proxy has to match the agent under the living
will because that person will be communicating your wishes as
the agent under the healthcare proxy you've set forth in
your living will. So when you're getting divorced, typically you
probably had your spouse as that agent, and you probably
(07:09):
don't want that person only finances anymore for you, or
God forbid, making health care decisions for you anymore. And
a divorce could take a long time. And Sander can
speak to this, I'm sure you could be looking at
a year, five years, ten years in some cases, if
it's complicated, and while that's pending, you probably if you
(07:32):
think about it for a moment, and do not want
your pending x spouse to be in a position to
make those decisions for you. So it's something that you
want to take care of right away and there would
be no reason not to. And then at some point,
and often in a divorce decree and Sander can speak
to this, there may be an instructure where you must
(07:55):
change your will. So again you probably have left assets
to your spouse first and then to the children. You're
going to want to change that when you're divorced, if
you have a blended family, if you remarry in the future,
you may want to do what's called a q TIP trust,
where you're leaving income to your second spouse for life,
(08:17):
but then the rest of the assets go to your
children from the first marriage. So there's all kinds of
things like that that come up, and the beneficiary designations.
As you mentioned, people forget about that a lot, especially
as you're older. Maybe there are policies, term life policies,
things of that nature that were set up years and
(08:38):
years ago. Maybe when your children were born. All of
that stuff needs to be changed. Pensions, iras, four one KS,
four three b's, whatever you have, and by the Arista laws,
you can't change you can't disinherit your spouse. You can't
change those designations until you have a final divorce decree.
So some of that does have to wait the very end.
(09:01):
But you know, to prepare for that, you want to
make sure you have your to do list. You want
to have your assets outlined for yourself so that you
know what you need to do when the right time comes.
And I'm sure Sandra in the excellent divorce attorney you know,
helps your clients through that and says, okay, this happens
at this point, in this point, so that you don't
forget anything, because these are really complicated situations and there's
(09:24):
so many moving parts, and each of these parts are
so critical to get it right.
Speaker 3 (09:30):
You don't want to, you.
Speaker 4 (09:31):
Know, leave anything out and then have an X spouse
suddenly get a million dollar life insurance policy or your
IRA or something else because you forgotten.
Speaker 5 (09:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
Yeah, so let's go back to you saying yeah, so
let's pick that up. And obviously Jennifer deals with a
lot of the state issues, but there are some, you know,
more pressing issues about division of the assets. The property
businesses talk a little bit about that. Those can be
complicated too, like how do you have something if your
spouse has a business, how do you deal with that?
(10:02):
If one of the spouses didn't work, what is he
or she entitled to? So, you know, let's talk about
just the treatment of the division of property and assets.
Speaker 5 (10:13):
So New York is what's called an equitable distribution state.
So we've heard of community there's community property states in
the United States, and equitable distribution. Community property means that
whatever you have at the time that you get divorced,
no matter when you acquired.
Speaker 3 (10:29):
It would be divided fifty to fifty.
Speaker 5 (10:31):
But New York doesn't do that, and equitable distribution states
don't do that. What they do is they look at
whatever you acquired during the marriage, So they would look
at the value of an asset at the time you
get married and what it is at the time that
you got divorced, and the amount that it grew between
that time period is what gets divided. So it's called
the marital portion. The courts look at the ending of
(10:53):
a marriage as a dissolution of the economic partnership, which
is the marriage. So with regard to equitable dis of
the marital assets, we look at all the assets that
were accumulated during the marriage that are part of the
marital estate. And New York does not distinguish between whether
it's just in one person's name or not. So if
it was accumulated during the marriage, even if it's titled
(11:16):
in one spouse's name, it's still marital property. Including what
a lot of people don't realize is the income that
you earn during the marriage. So if one person was
working during the marriage, the other spouse was not working
during the marriage, and they put money in a savings
account in their own name, that working spouse, that is
still a marital asset to be divided. So what we
(11:37):
do when there's a divorce is you take all of
the marital assets that becomes part of what we call
the marital estate and it all gets divided. So if
one party has a retirement account that's worth fifty thousand
dollars and the other one has a retirement account that's
worth I don't know, a million dollars, it's going to
be one million, fifty thousand dollars and that's going to
(11:58):
be divided. It's not that one person is going to
get a lower amount. They're going to end up with
an even amount, assuming that was all acquired during the marriage.
If five hundred thousand dollars of that million dollars in
retirement was acquired prior to the marriage, that would remain
that spouse's separate property, and only the remaining five hundred
thousand that was accumulated during the marriage would get divided.
(12:19):
So that's about the assets. With regard to spousal support,
that's a statutory formula, a formula by law that the
court puts into place, and the amount depends on the
amount of income that the person is making. So when
you have a senior person or someone over fifty or
over sixty getting divorced, a lot of times the courts
(12:41):
aren't going to make them work till they're ninety years
old in order to pay spousal support. Even though the
duration is typically one third the duration the length of
the marriage is usually the amount's espousal support.
Speaker 3 (12:53):
So there's a few things that we do.
Speaker 5 (12:56):
Sometimes if someone's continuing to work, they will continue to
pay spousal support.
Speaker 3 (13:00):
During that time. But if they retire and they're going.
Speaker 5 (13:03):
To beginning a pension, and the spouse is entitled to
fifty percent of that pension. For example, assuming it was
all marital, then the spousal support would typically start would
typically stop.
Speaker 3 (13:16):
Once the pension starts.
Speaker 5 (13:18):
So they don't want to leave one spouse in a
situation where they can't provide for their own food, clothing,
and shelter because they don't have a source of income
just because somebody else is retiring. So the courts look
for a way to make that equitable, either through payment
of a pension or assets, or maybe payment of the
amounts of spousal support they would have gotten in a
(13:38):
lump sum all at once.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
Right. Wow, A lot to consider. So we're going to continue.
We have we're going to have to take a break
about thirty seconds, but I want to shift a little
bit to think about it, you know, and we'll pick
it up after the break. But just going back and forth,
we've seen some of these really technical legalist issues which
(14:04):
are important to really think about them through, but then
talk about a little bit on the emotional components on
both sides of the issue. So because you know, as
you mentioned, Jennifer blended families, but then you would just
have adult kids and now they're not kids, they're adults.
Gets very complicated. So when we come back, we're going
(14:25):
to talk about that and then go back into some
of the more technical issues which are still important. Before
I continue, though, I want people to know what we're
talking much more with Jennifer COONa and Sandra Radna to
distinguish attorneys about great divorce, So don't go anywhere.
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(15:05):
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Speaker 7 (15:45):
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(16:05):
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Speaker 2 (16:46):
Welcome back, folks to forty five Forward. We're talking today
with attorneys Jennifercona and Sandra Radna about great divorce, a
growing trend of people getting divorced later in life. Before
the break, we were talking about a number of very
pragmatic issue I wanted to step back a little bit
and these are pragmatic as well, but in a different way,
and that is the emotional components of splitting up, which
(17:07):
I'm sure that each of you in different ways as
you're carrying out your your technic expertise. Think am I
a psychologist as well?
Speaker 4 (17:18):
You know?
Speaker 2 (17:20):
So how do you work with your clients given advice about,
you know, how to communicate with their children? Now, of
course some may have younger children, but they have usually
adult children, maybe their grandchildren. Any thoughts or neither you
and how to deal with how to communicate with the
rest of your family to minimize conflict if you can,
(17:41):
I'll go back with you said, and then maybe Jennifer
jump in.
Speaker 5 (17:45):
Okay, I think that there are some older people that
have young children, but the majority of them have older children,
and unfortunately, what happens is the children pick sides, They
slide with one parent or the other, and that makes
it very difficult. Is very difficult for the person going
through it to think that their parent, their child, doesn't
believe their narrative and they're believing their spouse's narrative.
Speaker 3 (18:09):
It is very emotional and.
Speaker 5 (18:11):
The only thing that I can I advise them to
do is to just keep talking to them, keep the
lines of communication open, and don't disparage the other parent.
Don't say anything bad about them. But at the same time,
if there's anything that's said that's both, tell them what
the truth is. Say here's what really happened. Then try
to show them some proof of that. Remember this is
(18:32):
what was happening on that day. The most important thing
that I tell people is don't involve the kids. It's
even if they're adults. They don't want to be in
the middle. They want to be able to love both
of you. They don't want to hear the terrible things
that their parents did to the other one.
Speaker 3 (18:48):
It shouldn't involve them.
Speaker 5 (18:50):
And people sometimes say, oh, they have a right to know,
they really don't. They don't need to know. They don't
need to know any of that. They just need to
know that this is between the two of us. It's
not working out, and we're just going to move on,
but we still love you even when they're adults.
Speaker 3 (19:04):
And I think that's a.
Speaker 5 (19:06):
If they could do that, those are the divorces that
are the happiest. It sounds like an oxymoron, but it
can be amicable if people are able to say, look,
we don't get along, we're going to move on with
our lives, but we're going to still be really nice
to our kids and not make them pick sides.
Speaker 2 (19:24):
Right right, And Jen, I guess on the asset side
or the legacy side, that could get complicated too, like, oh,
you know, how do you split the assets to kids
that they have opinions about, you know, who should get
what and so forth? So you know, any thoughts on that.
Speaker 4 (19:41):
Yeah, I mean it really is complicated. And I think
that on both sides, the parties get concerned and a
little freaked out because the kids are worried what's going
to happen to the money I'm supposed to inherit? And
it's some new spas going to get my inheritance, quote unquote,
that's a legitimate concern, I suppose, and the parents that
(20:04):
are splitting up tend to think, well, why are my kids,
you know, swarming looking for the money and why they
so concerned about that? And it feels ugly on both sides,
and so it really calls on our counselor at law
skills they want just in law school, it's only you
only learn it and earn it in practice. But it's
(20:26):
it's a pretty tough needle to thread. But we have
to do that very carefully and always remember that our
obligations run to the client, not to the kids, right
to parents, not to kids. Whoever our client is, that's
who we have to advise and whose side we're on
and who we're advocating for. But to Santra's point, the
most important thing is keeping the lines of communication open
(20:50):
because when you do that, not that you want your
kids involved in your divorce, but just that when you're
including family members in on the big decisions, whether it's
the estate planning or the advanced directives or what might
or might not happen at the end of the day
with the divorce, that transparency takes away the secrecy and
(21:13):
the fear, because it's the fear that makes families fight
right there, the fear, the concerned what's happening with the money,
what's going to happen at the end of the day.
That's where everybody gets crazy and the family split apart.
And we see the same thing in a state litigation
when someone passes away. It's the same thing as a divorce,
except someone has passed away. That's the only difference. It's
(21:35):
all about not knowing, and that drives the fear. So
opening up those lines of communication to the extent you
can while you're going through the divorce and certainly after,
so everyone knows what's my role, what's going to happen,
what's the intention, can really take the steam out and
keep everybody a little bit more calm and make sure
(21:56):
everyone knows what the intention is and how you expect
it to play out at the end of the day
in terms of assets, not in terms of who did
what or what caused the divorce. That isn't anybody else is.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
Right, right, Yeah, it's tricky. I mean I've done a
lot of working issue of family caregiving, and you know,
when when a spouse, especially when in my case, when
my dad passed away, you know, I was in charge
of basically setting up the caregiving plan for my mom
and even with other siblings, you know, so that it's
(22:28):
like okay, what again, what what happens now? And and
the tendency, as you said, is that you know, the
kids get involved and they have to realize that stop.
The client is your mother or father, it's not you.
I want to keep the lines open and communication, but
it's that's my client. And so if there are some conflicts,
(22:51):
it's I found what you need to do is the
the the parent and just in this case often needs
to communicate with the kids saying listen, this is what
I want. It it's not you know, this isn't a
battle between you and and even if it doesn't seem fair,
this is what I want, you know, for my family.
Speaker 3 (23:11):
Yeah. Y.
Speaker 5 (23:12):
On the divorce side, I just want to add to
what Jennifer's saying about keeping the children involved. So keeping
the children involved on the divorce side doesn't mean saying
here's how brotten your parent your other parent was, but
it does say that if they are going to get
remarried and there's going to be a prenuptial agreement, for example,
prior to that marriage, the children knowing that, look, this
(23:35):
life insurance policy that I have, you're still going to
be the beneficiary, and I'm going to have another one
the new spouse, but it's not going to take away
from what you have. Or yes, I'm going to let
new spouse live in the house with me, but the
house is being left to you. So those things, those
types of plans, that does give a lot of comfort
to the children. I've had children be there for that reason,
(23:59):
just for a prenup or even a post up, or
just having a discussion. I had a situation once where somebody,
an older person who had a terminal illness, was marrying
his nurse's aid because she was really nice to him
and she was a great caregiver, and he wanted her
to have a better life. And he had the son
(24:20):
there and the children liked her, but they were concerned
about their inheritance. And he told me he specifically had
a certain amount of money that was just for her
and nothing else was touched for the children, and he
wanted them there for that discussion, even though it was
just a prenuptial agreement that we were doing, just so
they were comforted to know that they were protected. Even
(24:41):
though they liked this woman, she was just there for
a short amount of time, and it did bring comfort
to the family to know that and to be part
of that discussion, so that it wasn't their father just
saying something, it was something he was actually doing.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
Right.
Speaker 4 (24:56):
That goes a long way, because otherwise you could be
looking at a will contest when the other passes away
and all that kind of stuff. So that kind of
transparency is really terrific.
Speaker 1 (25:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:06):
Yeah, So there are things too that I think either
one of you might be able to deal with some
of these things. But you know, obviously there it's difficult,
and I guess it's you know, especially it's changing because
women are getting more involved in the workplace and they're working,
you know, as well as their their spouse. But it
seems to me that it can be particularly difficult still
(25:28):
for women in terms of financial independence afterward. And so
I want to talk about things like insurance coverage, whether
it's you know, the designations for life insurance beneficiaries, but
also so security, Jim, what about I mean, I guess
(25:48):
social security is a big issue in terms of what
happens to their benefits when they get divorced.
Speaker 4 (25:55):
Sure, so you know, when you're in a married couple,
when one of them pass away, the survivor gets the
higher benefit of the two. So when you're thinking about divorce,
that's a consideration. Especially if the spouse has maybe taken
a period of time out of the workforce to raise
the children and whatnot. They're social security by default is
(26:16):
going to be much lower, So that's something to really consider,
and if you're coming up with a divorce settlement, you're
going to want to have assets to offset that through
other means. Other things to think about are long term
care insurance. Let's say that couple who's divorcing has a
long term care policy. You're going to want to make
sure that as part of the settlement negotiations that both
(26:40):
spouses are going to continue to be covered, because in
a typical long term care policy, you'll probably have spousal care.
Now that's not going to be the case. You're not
spouse's any longer. And let's say the policy was taken
out when you're forty or fifty. Now you're divorcing at seventy,
you can't go get a new policy. It'll be three
times as expensive, and maybe you have medical issues that
(27:01):
will disqualify you from being eligible altogether. So there's things
like that that have to be considered that you don't
come to the top of your mind if your marriage
is not necessarily so great or it's really horrible, but
you're not going to think, oh, but what about my
soci security or what about my long term care? But
these are realistic things that you want to, you know,
(27:22):
really hash out and say, what are the impact or
the practical impacts here.
Speaker 5 (27:27):
Well, one of the things that a lot of people
don't realize with regards to Social Security. Just to Jennifer's point,
one time, one spouse may be making a lot less
money than the other spouse, so it didn't pay in
as much into Social Security. But in addition to the
death benefits with social Security, so less moneyed spouse can
get Social Security as long as they've been married for
(27:49):
ten years or longer. Based on the more money spouse
is social Security pay in and they so they will
be able to use that amount without diminishing the moneyed
spouse is social Security benefits, so they would get the
benefit of the higher pay into Social Security. So a
higher Social Security payment as long as they've been married
(28:10):
for at least ten years based on their spouse.
Speaker 3 (28:12):
So it really helps a lot in a silver.
Speaker 5 (28:15):
Divorce, a silver splitter, or a great divorce, because that
gives security and a lot of times what we'll do
is we'll say, for example, health insurance will stay in
place until someone's Medicare eligible. Spousal support will continue until
they're able to get Social Security to supplement that, plus
maybe a pension benefit that they're going to be getting
from their spouse. And it does make it easier because
(28:38):
what we're thinking about is how will somebody financially survive
after the divorce, and so they're going to be getting
whatever they share the assets are, but what if they
don't have a lot of assets, then we rely on
the Social Security and the percentage of the retirement benefits
in order for that person to survive financially, right.
Speaker 2 (28:57):
Right, and another other kinds of coverage life insurance, disability,
all that stuff you deal with that as well, sunder
well life insurance.
Speaker 3 (29:06):
It depends.
Speaker 5 (29:07):
If it's just a term policy that's in place, there's
no value to be split. It would just be keeping
that policy in effect. But if to Jennifer's point, if
the term is going to expire. It's hard to get
another policy when you're older, especially if you have health
and health issues. But if there's a whole life policy,
(29:28):
the value of that whole life policy, the the phase value,
I think is what it's called, whatever the redemption value
is for that policy, will be split.
Speaker 3 (29:39):
That's considered a marital asset.
Speaker 5 (29:41):
So and depending if they've already paid off that policy,
which usually they have by that point, they'll be getting that.
Plus you can have that policy remain in place for
the remainder of the time that the spouse is entitled
to spousal support, and then it could be changed once
that's over.
Speaker 2 (29:57):
Right, right, I'm gonna do this again at the end
of the show. But there's so much information. You guys
have so much knowledge. I want to just take a
moment to let our audience know how they can get
in touch with each you and your websites and contact
information and any events you might know webinars coming up,
(30:18):
So Jennifer and start with you, and then Justsandra.
Speaker 4 (30:21):
Sure so, our website is Kona Elderlaw dot com, same
as my last c O.
Speaker 3 (30:26):
N A. Elder e L D E R.
Speaker 4 (30:29):
Law dot com. Phone number is six three one three
nine zero five thousand. We always have events going on.
We have webinars at least two times a week. We
have special events. Just go to our website and check
out our events calendar. And we also have eblasts that
inform the community of what we have coming up, so
(30:50):
you can get on our email list by going to
the website as well.
Speaker 5 (30:53):
Right and Sondra, my website is radnallaw dot com.
Speaker 3 (30:59):
Are a d and a law dot com. We're all
very creative.
Speaker 5 (31:03):
My phone number is sixty three one seventy five four
sixty three eight two. If people want more information about divorce,
I did write a book. It's called You're Getting Divorced?
Speaker 3 (31:13):
Now What? And it has a lot of information.
Speaker 5 (31:16):
And in addition, I'm on every social media platform TikTok, Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook.
I do short videos about questions that are common that
people have about divorce and in short, one minute, digestible
uh segments.
Speaker 3 (31:35):
So it's a lot of times people have questions.
Speaker 5 (31:37):
They don't know the questions that they have, but when
they hear it, they say, oh, yeah, I was wondering
about that.
Speaker 2 (31:42):
So right right exactly.
Speaker 4 (31:45):
Yeah, they don't know what you don't know in these
areas of law unfortunately.
Speaker 2 (31:49):
Right, yeah, right, yeah, I'm sure you come in situations
they're like I never never came across that before, you know. Yeah, great, so, yeah,
I'm glad you in your book. Yeah. Appropriate, you're getting
divorced now what yep? Absolutely so anything in the course
(32:11):
of well, let me just before I get into our
last few thoughts and anything surprising that you've learned over
the years that you that you didn't expect when you've
got in this profession, I would.
Speaker 5 (32:30):
Say something about the older divorces. The oldest person that
came to me to get a divorce was sixty eight
years old, and he was in a terrible marriage or
just he was just really unhappy. His wife was just
really mean to him, and he finally his children are adults,
he finally got the courage to get divorced. And by
(32:51):
the time his divorce was done, he was seventy one
years old, and he ran into his high school sweetheart,
believe it or not, whose husband had passed away, and
they got remarried and they've been extremely happily married for
the last six years. And I think a lot of
people would have thought sixty eight years old, Like, what's
(33:12):
he thinking?
Speaker 3 (33:12):
He's not good.
Speaker 5 (33:13):
He didn't even think he would get married again. He
just thought that he was going to live his lonely
life when he was done, when he was done, and
he is just so happy now. And what I would
say is that everybody deserves a happy ending. Everybody deserves
to live a life where they're not walking on eggshells
every time they go home and are just miserable or
don't even want to go home because of what's waiting there.
(33:33):
And I think that the biggest lesson from that is
everyone deserves to be happy. And that I always think
of him that he has a happy ending. He stays
in touch with me, and I I just love it.
Speaker 2 (33:47):
Yeah, I think that is. I mean, look, it's in
many ways painful. It's a loss of you know, a
chunk of your life. So there's that sense of loss.
But as you point out, I think that there's a
sense of relief cases and as you know, and you
know it's not everything works. And you know, there's a
(34:08):
term that I've often used, which is radical acceptance. You know,
it is what it is, and it doesn't mean that
you can't do anything right. It just means you accept
it and you need to move on and plan something else.
So I think that that's a valuable lesson anything else
you want to add ten to your experiences.
Speaker 4 (34:30):
You know, I think that in my field, I certainly
can't make these kinds of decisions for clients, but I
can guide people to get resources support and resources. Community
resources help people lean on what's available to them to
make the right decisions for themselves. And you know, the
(34:51):
way our firm practice is law is all about empowerment,
education and empowerment so that someone can get to the
right conclusion for them because we should all have happy
lives and you know, have the second half, a third quarter,
or whatever you want to call it, me the best
it can be. And like I said before, it could
you know, when you're in your fifties, you could be
(35:13):
looking at another fifty years. So you want that to
be the best you can be. And that decision should
not be hasty, whether you stay with someone and rebuild,
because there could be a lot of rebuildings. Say after
the kids go to college, that's a typical time when
you're suddenly looking at someone afresh and maybe you don't
like them much, or maybe you can reinvigorate that relationship,
(35:36):
or maybe it just you know needs to be Maybe
you just need to start over and it's not rehabbable.
But either way, you need a good support system in place.
And if you don't have one, because a lot of
people do have only married friends, at that point, you
kind of got to start all over. So put that
in place and have other people help you make those
(35:57):
kinds of decisions.
Speaker 2 (35:57):
I would say, right right. So we just have a
few more minutes before the end of the show. We're
going to do a wrap up, but I think we're
going to take another quick break and then we'll come
back with our final thoughts from Jennifercona and Sandra Radna.
So don't go away. We does have a quick wrap up.
Speaker 6 (36:15):
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(36:36):
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a creative spirit whose talents have taken her to the
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(36:59):
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a fruitful career doing what she loves. Listen Saturday mornings
at twelve Eastern for the Nancy and Mike Show for
heartwarming stories and interesting talk on the BBM Global Network.
Speaker 7 (37:25):
Are you struggling to care for elderly parents or a spouse?
Do you wonder if being a caregiver is making you sick?
Are you worried about taking time off work to care
for elderly parents and balance work life and caregiving? Has
caregiving become exhausting and emotionally draining? Are you an aging
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(37:45):
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Radio show for caregivers and aging adults Wednesday evenings, six Pacific,
seven Mountain, eighth Central and nine Eastern, where I answer
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(38:08):
plus my caregiving library. Online caregiver support programs and programs
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Speaker 2 (38:26):
Welcome back, folks again. We're talking today with attorneys Jennifercona
and Sandra Radna about great divorce. Before we continue, I
just wanted to let you know that if your friends
or colleagues miss this live show, don't worry. They could
always listen to replays of my conversation on the Bulbrave
TV YouTube channel or just click on forty five forward playlist.
(38:48):
You can listen to audio replays on many major platforms
like Spotify, Apple Podcasts, iHeartRadio, and Amazon Music. So, going
back and forth as we are between sort of the
micro and macro, I want to have Sender pick up
some stuff about, you know, the pragmatics of health insurance
and COBRA if necessary in these cases, of great divorce.
Speaker 3 (39:10):
So in the.
Speaker 5 (39:11):
Issue the case of great divorce, health insurance is a
very big issue. People are very concerned about losing their
health insurance. So I discussed before that we might wait
till Medicare kicks in. But what we do with the
if the parties are still working. We put in the
stipulation of settlement, which is a document that you live
by when you get divorced when the health insurance will end.
(39:33):
So by law, once you get divorced, you don't have
to have your spouse on your health insurance. So we
might maybe do a separation agreement, a legal separation until
the parties are reaching Medicare age. If the money's spouse
is still working and they're getting health insurance, do the job.
Speaker 3 (39:50):
Cobra would be in effect for.
Speaker 5 (39:52):
However long, and once it ended with the divorce, they
would be able to continue to health insurance with COBRA.
The other thing that's it's important for the listeners to
know is if somebody owns a business or if the
children are.
Speaker 3 (40:05):
Worried about what's going to happen to the house. We
refer to.
Speaker 5 (40:08):
Those different agreements within the divorced stipulation of settlements so
if there's an agreement with regard to the division of
the business or what's going to happen with the business
that's referred to in the agreement, And I'll ask Jennifer
to talk a little bit about trust because that's something
that we refer to. Also, if a house is being
protected in a trust for the children, I would refer
(40:30):
to that or to life insurance policy. So maybe Jennifer
could talk a little bit about that mechanism.
Speaker 2 (40:36):
Great go ahead.
Speaker 4 (40:38):
So, especially with gray divorce and silver splitters, at that
time in their lives, you're looking at protecting assets for
launcher care purposes. So a person may want to start
at that point by putting a house in a trust,
maybe other assets as well, So that's you know, medicaid
as a protection trust. So at that point you're looking
(41:00):
at the five year look back period. So the sooner
the better, someone should be engaging in that kind of
asset protection planning. And once divorced, you could know you
no longer have the option of spousal refusal planning. So
that's the key point here in terms of life insurance trust.
That's for estate tax planning purposes. And again once divorced,
(41:21):
if you're a single person, you don't have that the
state tax planning portability of maximizing, you know, by doubling
your federal and New York state state tax benefits. So
it's another consideration. You're a state tax planning profile is
going to change entirely and you're going to need to
revamp your whole plan there as well.
Speaker 2 (41:44):
Now I guess, well, I guess you have to sort
of settle what happens to things assets like the house
before you then can put them in trust for purposes
of protection for medicaid planning purposes, right, I mean right, Well.
Speaker 5 (41:57):
And it's two different things. So there's a cauld be
put in for medicaid planning purposes, and it could be
put in because if the child, for example, is going
to be a sole beneficiary of the trust, and the
child is worried about losing that house, it could be
put in for that purpose too, and a trust that
is irrevocable, and this way the child feels comfortable, the
(42:17):
adult child feels comfortable that if the a parent gets remarried,
that it's not going to go to somebody else or
they're not going to sell it and leave them with nothing.
So again, it's just something to make everybody comfortable and
that helps in the relationship also. So sometimes there's multiple properties,
we might want to discuss what's going to happen to
each property, and you can work with a trust in
(42:40):
the state's attorney to make sure either in a will
or buy a document or buy a trust. Maybe if
there's three children and there's three houses, to make sure
that the houses are going to go to each child.
So the stipulation of settlement, which is the divorce really
works hand in hand with the other agreements that are done.
Speaker 3 (42:57):
In planning.
Speaker 5 (42:58):
Everything is planning, and when there's planning, everything goes smoothly.
When there's not planning, then it becomes very difficult later
on for the family when we're trying to figure it out.
So one of the things Jennifer mentioned is people forgetting
to change things. So what we do is, once a
party gets divorced, when it's a dumb distipulation of settlement,
(43:19):
which is a long document it could be fifty to
eighty pages long, we give them a closing letter that
kind of gives them a bridge version of here's everything
that needs to be done, and here's what you need
to do now. Because it's easier for someone to look
at something that's three pages long that says here's the
dates when you have to do everything, then to look
(43:40):
at the whole document, even though they'll look at that
document here and there, and even with that, our clients
will call us and say when was I supposed to
do this? Or when does this do? Or what should
I do? But if you give them a checklist, which
it sounds like Jennifer does the same thing that we do.
If you give them a checklist, then they know, okay,
I have to do all of these things out right.
Speaker 2 (44:01):
And one thing on the flip side of the assets
that you mentioned me too before SOUNDRA is just on
the liabilities. What happens to the debt that the family has.
Speaker 5 (44:12):
Well, the debt is something that should be taken care
of as part of the divorce, so they shouldn't be
leaving debt on the table. So we try to take
care of everything so the debts are split the same
way as the assets are, so if there are debts,
we want to have all of that taken care of beforehand.
Speaker 3 (44:29):
And then we.
Speaker 5 (44:30):
Also add that neither party can accumulate debt or incurred
debt in the other party's name once we have this
stipulation of settlement and we talk about what each person
is going to be responsible for if there weren't enough
assets to get rid of all the debt and pay
off the debt.
Speaker 2 (44:46):
Right, right, So any advice or for someone over fifty
who's thinking about divorce but it feels like it you
can think about what to do before it's too late.
I mean, you know it's I mean, planning is part
of it. I mean, and of course I suppose the
(45:06):
mediation could be part of it, Like wait a minute, right,
this is where we're headed. But also we.
Speaker 5 (45:11):
Talked about the difference between mediation and a litigated divorce.
Mediation is one person that's sitting with both parties to
try to discuss the major issues. So the issues are
always who's going to stay in the marital residents. There's
no custody issues anymore because the children are usually adults.
But then the rest is division of the marital assets.
And the biggest problem that people have.
Speaker 3 (45:33):
Is they don't know what assets they have.
Speaker 5 (45:36):
So the less money spouts, for example, might never have
dealt with anything.
Speaker 3 (45:41):
They don't know what they really have.
Speaker 5 (45:42):
So if someone's thinking about it, start getting familiar with
what assets you have, what do you own, what are
your financials? Do you have a brokerage account? How are
things titled? Where are documents? And the assets could be
anywhere from stocks, brokerage accounts, crypto currency, digital assets, real estate, cars, vehicles,
(46:06):
whatever it is. You should know where everything is and
how it's titled, because it's very difficult once the divorce
starts to find those things if you don't know about
them already.
Speaker 8 (46:15):
Yeah, and that's the same thing for ELI law planning
and estate planning. You have to know where all of
your assets are, who's name they're in, the some substance
of them. So it's really all about getting your ducks.
Speaker 4 (46:29):
In a row, gathering all that information so that we
can adequately deal with that. So it works the same
way for Sandra as it does for the planning that
I have to do, and then we take it from
there and we're able to deal with the information and
deal with it properly because we don't want to have surprises, right.
We don't want unknown things to pop up through the
(46:51):
process because then we can't handle it properly.
Speaker 3 (46:55):
Right.
Speaker 5 (46:56):
One of the things that we always put in our
agreements is if someone did not disclose something and we
find it out after the divorce, that the spouse that
it was not disclosed to will still get fifty percent
in the future. So if it pops up later on,
so someone can't feel like they pulled the fast one
on someone, we can always if we find that out,
they could still be entitled to it. So that's just
(47:16):
really the safety net. But the more you know before
you start the process, the better. Yeah, and that's the
most important thing.
Speaker 2 (47:25):
Yeah, agreed, Just and think about what Buffy said. Yeah,
I think the essence of knowing this stuff is important
no matter what the circumstance is. So in the case
of just you know, elder law planning, you know, I
think one of the issues that came up in my
family is, so it's not a divorce, but if one
of the spouses suddenly dies and the other spouse doesn't
(47:47):
know this information, Yeah, that's and it's not uncommon, right,
I Mean my family had sort of a traditional you know,
breakdown of tasks and assignments and responsibilit My dad had
the assets, my mom had the monthly budgeting, but didn't
know what about the assets. So it's important even you know,
(48:09):
because that's a sudden break. It's not a force, but
it's a death and you need to know this information.
Speaker 5 (48:15):
So yeah, some people, some spouses don't even know how
much they spend a month. They don't know how much
they need to live on because there's just they just
use the checkbook or they just use the credit card.
So you really have to know how much do I
need a month to live on before you can even
start a divorce, because if you don't know those numbers,
(48:35):
you might just accept something as a settlement that doesn't
allow you to live the lifestyle that you're accustomed to
or even close to it. It doesn't have to be exactly
the same, but you have to be able to afford
a place to live and to buy food and have
a car to drive and put gas in it. So
those are really important things to know. So planning is
(48:55):
always key.
Speaker 4 (48:56):
Great planning is always key, and education and resources are always.
Speaker 2 (49:00):
Key, right right, Well, on that note, I want to
thank you both of you, Jennifer and Senator for a
great show. You crammed a lot in uh people could
listen to it a podcast again and review it because
it's a lot to retain. But I want to thank
you for a terrific conversation. Again, just if people want
to contact you, what's the best way to do that, Jennifer.
Speaker 4 (49:25):
So for me it is six three one three nine
zero five thousand, or our website which is Konaelderlaw dot com.
Speaker 5 (49:32):
Okay, and my phone number is six three one seven
five four six three eight two and my website is
Radnelaw dot com.
Speaker 3 (49:41):
R A d n A law dot com.
Speaker 2 (49:45):
Great. Okay. So, once again, folks, this has been ronra Well,
the host of forty five Forward on BOWLBRATV. Thanks for
spending the hour of me and I always learn from
my own shows, and I hope you do too. I
want to thank also my near Alex, who's part of
a terrific team that guides me through every week. And
so folks, be sure to join me next Wednesday at
(50:07):
seven pm Eastern time. I'll be talking to Emiliano Vegas.
She's the author of a recent book, Let's Change the World,
which offers a practical and encouraging guide for people, no
matter what their age, who want to spur positive change
through their professional organization. So, folks, until that time, keep
(50:27):
moving forward. Forty five Forward.
Speaker 1 (50:35):
This has been forty five Forward with host Ron Rowell.
Tune in each week as Ron tackles the many aspects
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all as part of an integrated plan and to take
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(50:58):
seven pm Eastern on the Bold Brave TV Network, powered
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Welcome to forty five Forward with host, journalist and speaker
Ron Roweu. Ron's mission is to make your second half
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(00:29):
providing vital strategies to shift the traditional waiting for retirement
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So now please welcome the host of forty five Forward,
Ron row Out.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Welcome everyone to forty five Forward on Bowl Brave TV.
This is your host, Ron Roel. Now, on today's show,
we're dealing with a complicated and emotional topic, great divorce.
What's great divorce? Well, it's probably what you think it is,
which is it's the phenomenon people getting divorced later in life,
generally after fifty, but often sixties and seventies. And the
(01:25):
interesting twists that I've discovered is that while the divorce
rate is probably stayed somewhat stable between forty and fifty percent,
the divorce rate for younger people has been actually declining,
but the divorce rate for older people has actually been
dramatically increasing. So that's the topic for today, which is
(01:45):
about what is great divorce about. We have two distinguished
New York attorneys, Jennifer Kona and Sandra Radna, who will
provide practical and extremely relatable information about this process and
help of how they help silver splitters navigate this complicated transition.
They talked about a lot of things from the both
(02:07):
the divorce side and the estate and planning side and
healthcare side. Lots and lots of information, so there's a
lot to consider. So let's get right to it. Let's
meet my guest, Jennifer Kona and Sandra Radna. Jennifer and Sandra,
welcome to the show.
Speaker 3 (02:24):
Thank you for having us.
Speaker 4 (02:26):
Thanks Ryan, great to see you.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
It's pleasure guys. Yeah, we've had a previous conversation and
there is a lot to discuss, and you guys know
a lot. So I'm really pleased to have you because
you know, this is something people don't talk about, you know,
certainly when you're getting married, you know saying well let
me think what about what about getting divorced? But it's
it's a reality in today's society. So I'm glad to
(02:50):
have you and this is going to be a conversation,
so we'll just go back and forth. It's not going
to be straight Q and A. But why don't we
start off with new Sander. Just give us a little
bit more bad great divorce? And how is it really
different from people getting divorced in the thirties or forties,
And maybe there are there's some common myths about it
or misconceptions. So let's start with you and Jennifer as
(03:12):
I meant to jump in and various things as we
can move along.
Speaker 5 (03:16):
Well, the biggest difference between a divorce and an older
couple as opposed to a younger couple is that they
usually have more assets, they probably have children that are adults,
and things are a little bit different from them. The
reason that I believe the divorce rate is increasing for
people over fifty and decreasing to younger people is that
(03:37):
a lot of younger people don't get married in order to.
Speaker 3 (03:39):
Have children anymore.
Speaker 5 (03:40):
So there's less people getting married, and older people who
are married are realizing that there's life after fifty and
they deserve to be happy and they deserve to have
a life. And even if they're fifty sixty, people are
living into their nineties now, so life isn't over just
because they're over sixty years old. They want to be
(04:01):
able to be happy. So I would think those are
the big differences for why people are getting divorced at
higher rates over fifty.
Speaker 3 (04:09):
And the biggest difference is the assets they have.
Speaker 5 (04:12):
A lot of times when people have adult children and
they're a parent, they've seen your parent is getting remarried.
They're very concerned about what's going to happen to my inheritance,
What's going to happen to what I was supposed to get?
Is this person just going to take my parents' assets?
And I'm sure Jennifer is going to talk a little
bit about how to protect people for that, But I
(04:33):
would say those are the big differences.
Speaker 4 (04:37):
Yeah, And it certainly is a much more complicated situation
just by virtue of having more assets. And obviously we
see a lot more blended families now, you know, we
see because people are living longer, we've got multiple generations,
so the whole thing becomes much more complicated, between elder law,
state planning, planning for long term care needs, the exorbitant
(04:59):
cost of health health care, so the whole thing is
much more complicated, but I definitely agree with you, Sandra,
that people are saying themselves, if I'm going to live
to one hundred, which all of us right here on
this screen are probably going to live to one hundred,
we want to make sure we're happy and there's really
no reason not to be right.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
Yeah, yeah, So we're going to go back between some
bigger pictures and smaller issues. So I think one of
the things that comes up sort of immediately that the
problem deal with Jennifer is just like the practically, like
the the advanced directives, you know, the beneficiary designations, so
(05:35):
you know state plans, you know, like stuff like immediately,
we better change this stuff. So talk about that a little.
Speaker 4 (05:42):
Bit sure, and a lot of people don't think about
that right away. So events directives in case your audience
members don't know, include the power of attorney, healthcare proxy,
and living well. So the power of attorney is where
you name someone to handle finances for you in case
you can't if you're incapacitated or otherwise unable to. So
you want to name someone who can handle finances for you.
(06:05):
Could be banking, real estate transactions, setting up trust for you,
so it could be day to day things or big
picture items. The healthcare proxy, you're naming someone to be
your voice for you as to medical decisions, communicating with
doctors again if you can't, you make your decisions up
until point if you cannot, so it's someone who steps
(06:25):
in at that time. And the living will is where
you set forth what your wishes are as to end
of life care. Do you want artificial nutrition and hydration
heroic measures or are you more in the camp of
if my time has come, let me go. So it's
those kinds of decisions, and at least in New York anyway,
your agents have to be the same. Doctors want only
(06:47):
one person to listen to, so the agent under the
healthcare proxy has to match the agent under the living
will because that person will be communicating your wishes as
the agent under the healthcare proxy you've set forth in
your living will. So when you're getting divorced, typically you
probably had your spouse as that agent, and you probably
(07:09):
don't want that person only finances anymore for you, or
God forbid, making health care decisions for you anymore. And
a divorce could take a long time. And Sander can
speak to this, I'm sure you could be looking at
a year, five years, ten years in some cases, if
it's complicated, and while that's pending, you probably if you
(07:32):
think about it for a moment, and do not want
your pending x spouse to be in a position to
make those decisions for you. So it's something that you
want to take care of right away and there would
be no reason not to. And then at some point,
and often in a divorce decree and Sander can speak
to this, there may be an instructure where you must
(07:55):
change your will. So again you probably have left assets
to your spouse first and then to the children. You're
going to want to change that when you're divorced, if
you have a blended family, if you remarry in the future,
you may want to do what's called a q TIP trust,
where you're leaving income to your second spouse for life,
(08:17):
but then the rest of the assets go to your
children from the first marriage. So there's all kinds of
things like that that come up, and the beneficiary designations.
As you mentioned, people forget about that a lot, especially
as you're older. Maybe there are policies, term life policies,
things of that nature that were set up years and
(08:38):
years ago. Maybe when your children were born. All of
that stuff needs to be changed. Pensions, iras, four one KS,
four three b's, whatever you have, and by the Arista laws,
you can't change you can't disinherit your spouse. You can't
change those designations until you have a final divorce decree.
So some of that does have to wait the very end.
(09:01):
But you know, to prepare for that, you want to
make sure you have your to do list. You want
to have your assets outlined for yourself so that you
know what you need to do when the right time comes.
And I'm sure Sandra in the excellent divorce attorney you know,
helps your clients through that and says, okay, this happens
at this point, in this point, so that you don't
forget anything, because these are really complicated situations and there's
(09:24):
so many moving parts, and each of these parts are
so critical to get it right.
Speaker 3 (09:30):
You don't want to, you.
Speaker 4 (09:31):
Know, leave anything out and then have an X spouse
suddenly get a million dollar life insurance policy or your
IRA or something else because you forgotten.
Speaker 5 (09:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
Yeah, so let's go back to you saying yeah, so
let's pick that up. And obviously Jennifer deals with a
lot of the state issues, but there are some, you know,
more pressing issues about division of the assets. The property
businesses talk a little bit about that. Those can be
complicated too, like how do you have something if your
spouse has a business, how do you deal with that?
(10:02):
If one of the spouses didn't work, what is he
or she entitled to? So, you know, let's talk about
just the treatment of the division of property and assets.
Speaker 5 (10:13):
So New York is what's called an equitable distribution state.
So we've heard of community there's community property states in
the United States, and equitable distribution. Community property means that
whatever you have at the time that you get divorced,
no matter when you acquired.
Speaker 3 (10:29):
It would be divided fifty to fifty.
Speaker 5 (10:31):
But New York doesn't do that, and equitable distribution states
don't do that. What they do is they look at
whatever you acquired during the marriage, So they would look
at the value of an asset at the time you
get married and what it is at the time that
you got divorced, and the amount that it grew between
that time period is what gets divided. So it's called
the marital portion. The courts look at the ending of
(10:53):
a marriage as a dissolution of the economic partnership, which
is the marriage. So with regard to equitable dis of
the marital assets, we look at all the assets that
were accumulated during the marriage that are part of the
marital estate. And New York does not distinguish between whether
it's just in one person's name or not. So if
it was accumulated during the marriage, even if it's titled
(11:16):
in one spouse's name, it's still marital property. Including what
a lot of people don't realize is the income that
you earn during the marriage. So if one person was
working during the marriage, the other spouse was not working
during the marriage, and they put money in a savings
account in their own name, that working spouse, that is
still a marital asset to be divided. So what we
(11:37):
do when there's a divorce is you take all of
the marital assets that becomes part of what we call
the marital estate and it all gets divided. So if
one party has a retirement account that's worth fifty thousand
dollars and the other one has a retirement account that's
worth I don't know, a million dollars, it's going to
be one million, fifty thousand dollars and that's going to
(11:58):
be divided. It's not that one person is going to
get a lower amount. They're going to end up with
an even amount, assuming that was all acquired during the marriage.
If five hundred thousand dollars of that million dollars in
retirement was acquired prior to the marriage, that would remain
that spouse's separate property, and only the remaining five hundred
thousand that was accumulated during the marriage would get divided.
(12:19):
So that's about the assets. With regard to spousal support,
that's a statutory formula, a formula by law that the
court puts into place, and the amount depends on the
amount of income that the person is making. So when
you have a senior person or someone over fifty or
over sixty getting divorced, a lot of times the courts
(12:41):
aren't going to make them work till they're ninety years
old in order to pay spousal support. Even though the
duration is typically one third the duration the length of
the marriage is usually the amount's espousal support.
Speaker 3 (12:53):
So there's a few things that we do.
Speaker 5 (12:56):
Sometimes if someone's continuing to work, they will continue to
pay spousal support.
Speaker 3 (13:00):
During that time. But if they retire and they're going.
Speaker 5 (13:03):
To beginning a pension, and the spouse is entitled to
fifty percent of that pension. For example, assuming it was
all marital, then the spousal support would typically start would
typically stop.
Speaker 3 (13:16):
Once the pension starts.
Speaker 5 (13:18):
So they don't want to leave one spouse in a
situation where they can't provide for their own food, clothing,
and shelter because they don't have a source of income
just because somebody else is retiring. So the courts look
for a way to make that equitable, either through payment
of a pension or assets, or maybe payment of the
amounts of spousal support they would have gotten in a
(13:38):
lump sum all at once.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
Right. Wow, A lot to consider. So we're going to continue.
We have we're going to have to take a break
about thirty seconds, but I want to shift a little
bit to think about it, you know, and we'll pick
it up after the break. But just going back and forth,
we've seen some of these really technical legalist issues which
(14:04):
are important to really think about them through, but then
talk about a little bit on the emotional components on
both sides of the issue. So because you know, as
you mentioned, Jennifer blended families, but then you would just
have adult kids and now they're not kids, they're adults.
Gets very complicated. So when we come back, we're going
(14:25):
to talk about that and then go back into some
of the more technical issues which are still important. Before
I continue, though, I want people to know what we're
talking much more with Jennifer COONa and Sandra Radna to
distinguish attorneys about great divorce, So don't go anywhere.
Speaker 6 (14:43):
Mike Zurich are three time California state champion in Greco
Roman wrestling at one hundred and fourteen pounds. Mike Blindsi's
birth was born in Hartford, Connecticut. He was a six
time national placer, including two seconds, two thirds, and two fourths.
He also won the Veterans Folk Style Wrestling twice at
(15:05):
one hundred and fifty two pounds. In all these tournaments,
he was the only blind competitor. Nancy Zurich a creative
spirit whose talents have taken her to the stage and
into galleries and exhibitions in several states. Her father, a
commercial artist, who shared his instruments with his daughter and
helped her fine tune. Her natural abilities influenced her decision
(15:27):
to follow in his footsteps. Miss Zorich has enjoyed a
fruitful career doing what she loves. Listen Saturday mornings at
twelve Eastern for the Nancy and Mike Show for heartwarming
stories and interesting talk on the BBM Global Network.
Speaker 7 (15:45):
Are you struggling to care for elderly parents or a spouse?
Do you wonder if being a caregiver is making you sick?
Are you worried about taking time off work to care
for elderly parents and balance work life and caregiving? Has
caregiving become exhaust and emotionally draining? Are you an aging
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(16:05):
I'm Pamela d Wilson. Join me for the Carrying Generation
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these questions and share tips for managing stress, family relationships, health,
wellbeing and more. Podcasts and transcripts of the Carrying Generation
are on my website, Pamela Dwilson dot com, plus my
(16:29):
Caregiving library, online caregiver support programs and programs for corporations
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Wilson dot com.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
Welcome back, folks to forty five Forward. We're talking today
with attorneys Jennifercona and Sandra Radna about great divorce, a
growing trend of people getting divorced later in life. Before
the break, we were talking about a number of very
pragmatic issue I wanted to step back a little bit
and these are pragmatic as well, but in a different way,
and that is the emotional components of splitting up, which
(17:07):
I'm sure that each of you in different ways as
you're carrying out your your technic expertise. Think am I
a psychologist as well?
Speaker 4 (17:18):
You know?
Speaker 2 (17:20):
So how do you work with your clients given advice about,
you know, how to communicate with their children? Now, of
course some may have younger children, but they have usually
adult children, maybe their grandchildren. Any thoughts or neither you
and how to deal with how to communicate with the
rest of your family to minimize conflict if you can,
(17:41):
I'll go back with you said, and then maybe Jennifer
jump in.
Speaker 5 (17:45):
Okay, I think that there are some older people that
have young children, but the majority of them have older children,
and unfortunately, what happens is the children pick sides, They
slide with one parent or the other, and that makes
it very difficult. Is very difficult for the person going
through it to think that their parent, their child, doesn't
believe their narrative and they're believing their spouse's narrative.
Speaker 3 (18:09):
It is very emotional and.
Speaker 5 (18:11):
The only thing that I can I advise them to
do is to just keep talking to them, keep the
lines of communication open, and don't disparage the other parent.
Don't say anything bad about them. But at the same time,
if there's anything that's said that's both, tell them what
the truth is. Say here's what really happened. Then try
to show them some proof of that. Remember this is
(18:32):
what was happening on that day. The most important thing
that I tell people is don't involve the kids. It's
even if they're adults. They don't want to be in
the middle. They want to be able to love both
of you. They don't want to hear the terrible things
that their parents did to the other one.
Speaker 3 (18:48):
It shouldn't involve them.
Speaker 5 (18:50):
And people sometimes say, oh, they have a right to know,
they really don't. They don't need to know. They don't
need to know any of that. They just need to
know that this is between the two of us. It's
not working out, and we're just going to move on,
but we still love you even when they're adults.
Speaker 3 (19:04):
And I think that's a.
Speaker 5 (19:06):
If they could do that, those are the divorces that
are the happiest. It sounds like an oxymoron, but it
can be amicable if people are able to say, look,
we don't get along, we're going to move on with
our lives, but we're going to still be really nice
to our kids and not make them pick sides.
Speaker 2 (19:24):
Right right, And Jen, I guess on the asset side
or the legacy side, that could get complicated too, like, oh,
you know, how do you split the assets to kids
that they have opinions about, you know, who should get
what and so forth? So you know, any thoughts on that.
Speaker 4 (19:41):
Yeah, I mean it really is complicated. And I think
that on both sides, the parties get concerned and a
little freaked out because the kids are worried what's going
to happen to the money I'm supposed to inherit? And
it's some new spas going to get my inheritance, quote unquote,
that's a legitimate concern, I suppose, and the parents that
(20:04):
are splitting up tend to think, well, why are my kids,
you know, swarming looking for the money and why they
so concerned about that? And it feels ugly on both sides,
and so it really calls on our counselor at law
skills they want just in law school, it's only you
only learn it and earn it in practice. But it's
(20:26):
it's a pretty tough needle to thread. But we have
to do that very carefully and always remember that our
obligations run to the client, not to the kids, right
to parents, not to kids. Whoever our client is, that's
who we have to advise and whose side we're on
and who we're advocating for. But to Santra's point, the
most important thing is keeping the lines of communication open
(20:50):
because when you do that, not that you want your
kids involved in your divorce, but just that when you're
including family members in on the big decisions, whether it's
the estate planning or the advanced directives or what might
or might not happen at the end of the day
with the divorce, that transparency takes away the secrecy and
(21:13):
the fear, because it's the fear that makes families fight
right there, the fear, the concerned what's happening with the money,
what's going to happen at the end of the day.
That's where everybody gets crazy and the family split apart.
And we see the same thing in a state litigation
when someone passes away. It's the same thing as a divorce,
except someone has passed away. That's the only difference. It's
(21:35):
all about not knowing, and that drives the fear. So
opening up those lines of communication to the extent you
can while you're going through the divorce and certainly after,
so everyone knows what's my role, what's going to happen,
what's the intention, can really take the steam out and
keep everybody a little bit more calm and make sure
(21:56):
everyone knows what the intention is and how you expect
it to play out at the end of the day
in terms of assets, not in terms of who did
what or what caused the divorce. That isn't anybody else is.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
Right, right, Yeah, it's tricky. I mean I've done a
lot of working issue of family caregiving, and you know,
when when a spouse, especially when in my case, when
my dad passed away, you know, I was in charge
of basically setting up the caregiving plan for my mom
and even with other siblings, you know, so that it's
(22:28):
like okay, what again, what what happens now? And and
the tendency, as you said, is that you know, the
kids get involved and they have to realize that stop.
The client is your mother or father, it's not you.
I want to keep the lines open and communication, but
it's that's my client. And so if there are some conflicts,
(22:51):
it's I found what you need to do is the
the the parent and just in this case often needs
to communicate with the kids saying listen, this is what
I want. It it's not you know, this isn't a
battle between you and and even if it doesn't seem fair,
this is what I want, you know, for my family.
Speaker 3 (23:11):
Yeah. Y.
Speaker 5 (23:12):
On the divorce side, I just want to add to
what Jennifer's saying about keeping the children involved. So keeping
the children involved on the divorce side doesn't mean saying
here's how brotten your parent your other parent was, but
it does say that if they are going to get
remarried and there's going to be a prenuptial agreement, for example,
prior to that marriage, the children knowing that, look, this
(23:35):
life insurance policy that I have, you're still going to
be the beneficiary, and I'm going to have another one
the new spouse, but it's not going to take away
from what you have. Or yes, I'm going to let
new spouse live in the house with me, but the
house is being left to you. So those things, those
types of plans, that does give a lot of comfort
to the children. I've had children be there for that reason,
(23:59):
just for a prenup or even a post up, or
just having a discussion. I had a situation once where somebody,
an older person who had a terminal illness, was marrying
his nurse's aid because she was really nice to him
and she was a great caregiver, and he wanted her
to have a better life. And he had the son
(24:20):
there and the children liked her, but they were concerned
about their inheritance. And he told me he specifically had
a certain amount of money that was just for her
and nothing else was touched for the children, and he
wanted them there for that discussion, even though it was
just a prenuptial agreement that we were doing, just so
they were comforted to know that they were protected. Even
(24:41):
though they liked this woman, she was just there for
a short amount of time, and it did bring comfort
to the family to know that and to be part
of that discussion, so that it wasn't their father just
saying something, it was something he was actually doing.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
Right.
Speaker 4 (24:56):
That goes a long way, because otherwise you could be
looking at a will contest when the other passes away
and all that kind of stuff. So that kind of
transparency is really terrific.
Speaker 1 (25:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:06):
Yeah, So there are things too that I think either
one of you might be able to deal with some
of these things. But you know, obviously there it's difficult,
and I guess it's you know, especially it's changing because
women are getting more involved in the workplace and they're working,
you know, as well as their their spouse. But it
seems to me that it can be particularly difficult still
(25:28):
for women in terms of financial independence afterward. And so
I want to talk about things like insurance coverage, whether
it's you know, the designations for life insurance beneficiaries, but
also so security, Jim, what about I mean, I guess
(25:48):
social security is a big issue in terms of what
happens to their benefits when they get divorced.
Speaker 4 (25:55):
Sure, so you know, when you're in a married couple,
when one of them pass away, the survivor gets the
higher benefit of the two. So when you're thinking about divorce,
that's a consideration. Especially if the spouse has maybe taken
a period of time out of the workforce to raise
the children and whatnot. They're social security by default is
(26:16):
going to be much lower, So that's something to really consider,
and if you're coming up with a divorce settlement, you're
going to want to have assets to offset that through
other means. Other things to think about are long term
care insurance. Let's say that couple who's divorcing has a
long term care policy. You're going to want to make
sure that as part of the settlement negotiations that both
(26:40):
spouses are going to continue to be covered, because in
a typical long term care policy, you'll probably have spousal care.
Now that's not going to be the case. You're not
spouse's any longer. And let's say the policy was taken
out when you're forty or fifty. Now you're divorcing at seventy,
you can't go get a new policy. It'll be three
times as expensive, and maybe you have medical issues that
(27:01):
will disqualify you from being eligible altogether. So there's things
like that that have to be considered that you don't
come to the top of your mind if your marriage
is not necessarily so great or it's really horrible, but
you're not going to think, oh, but what about my
soci security or what about my long term care? But
these are realistic things that you want to, you know,
(27:22):
really hash out and say, what are the impact or
the practical impacts here.
Speaker 5 (27:27):
Well, one of the things that a lot of people
don't realize with regards to Social Security. Just to Jennifer's point,
one time, one spouse may be making a lot less
money than the other spouse, so it didn't pay in
as much into Social Security. But in addition to the
death benefits with social Security, so less moneyed spouse can
get Social Security as long as they've been married for
(27:49):
ten years or longer. Based on the more money spouse
is social Security pay in and they so they will
be able to use that amount without diminishing the moneyed
spouse is social Security benefits, so they would get the
benefit of the higher pay into Social Security. So a
higher Social Security payment as long as they've been married
(28:10):
for at least ten years based on their spouse.
Speaker 3 (28:12):
So it really helps a lot in a silver.
Speaker 5 (28:15):
Divorce, a silver splitter, or a great divorce, because that
gives security and a lot of times what we'll do
is we'll say, for example, health insurance will stay in
place until someone's Medicare eligible. Spousal support will continue until
they're able to get Social Security to supplement that, plus
maybe a pension benefit that they're going to be getting
from their spouse. And it does make it easier because
(28:38):
what we're thinking about is how will somebody financially survive
after the divorce, and so they're going to be getting
whatever they share the assets are, but what if they
don't have a lot of assets, then we rely on
the Social Security and the percentage of the retirement benefits
in order for that person to survive financially, right.
Speaker 2 (28:57):
Right, and another other kinds of coverage life insurance, disability,
all that stuff you deal with that as well, sunder
well life insurance.
Speaker 3 (29:06):
It depends.
Speaker 5 (29:07):
If it's just a term policy that's in place, there's
no value to be split. It would just be keeping
that policy in effect. But if to Jennifer's point, if
the term is going to expire. It's hard to get
another policy when you're older, especially if you have health
and health issues. But if there's a whole life policy,
(29:28):
the value of that whole life policy, the the phase value,
I think is what it's called, whatever the redemption value
is for that policy, will be split.
Speaker 3 (29:39):
That's considered a marital asset.
Speaker 5 (29:41):
So and depending if they've already paid off that policy,
which usually they have by that point, they'll be getting that.
Plus you can have that policy remain in place for
the remainder of the time that the spouse is entitled
to spousal support, and then it could be changed once
that's over.
Speaker 2 (29:57):
Right, right, I'm gonna do this again at the end
of the show. But there's so much information. You guys
have so much knowledge. I want to just take a
moment to let our audience know how they can get
in touch with each you and your websites and contact
information and any events you might know webinars coming up,
(30:18):
So Jennifer and start with you, and then Justsandra.
Speaker 4 (30:21):
Sure so, our website is Kona Elderlaw dot com, same
as my last c O.
Speaker 3 (30:26):
N A. Elder e L D E R.
Speaker 4 (30:29):
Law dot com. Phone number is six three one three
nine zero five thousand. We always have events going on.
We have webinars at least two times a week. We
have special events. Just go to our website and check
out our events calendar. And we also have eblasts that
inform the community of what we have coming up, so
(30:50):
you can get on our email list by going to
the website as well.
Speaker 5 (30:53):
Right and Sondra, my website is radnallaw dot com.
Speaker 3 (30:59):
Are a d and a law dot com. We're all
very creative.
Speaker 5 (31:03):
My phone number is sixty three one seventy five four
sixty three eight two. If people want more information about divorce,
I did write a book. It's called You're Getting Divorced?
Speaker 3 (31:13):
Now What? And it has a lot of information.
Speaker 5 (31:16):
And in addition, I'm on every social media platform TikTok, Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook.
I do short videos about questions that are common that
people have about divorce and in short, one minute, digestible
uh segments.
Speaker 3 (31:35):
So it's a lot of times people have questions.
Speaker 5 (31:37):
They don't know the questions that they have, but when
they hear it, they say, oh, yeah, I was wondering
about that.
Speaker 2 (31:42):
So right right exactly.
Speaker 4 (31:45):
Yeah, they don't know what you don't know in these
areas of law unfortunately.
Speaker 2 (31:49):
Right, yeah, right, yeah, I'm sure you come in situations
they're like I never never came across that before, you know. Yeah, great, so, yeah,
I'm glad you in your book. Yeah. Appropriate, you're getting
divorced now what yep? Absolutely so anything in the course
(32:11):
of well, let me just before I get into our
last few thoughts and anything surprising that you've learned over
the years that you that you didn't expect when you've
got in this profession, I would.
Speaker 5 (32:30):
Say something about the older divorces. The oldest person that
came to me to get a divorce was sixty eight
years old, and he was in a terrible marriage or
just he was just really unhappy. His wife was just
really mean to him, and he finally his children are adults,
he finally got the courage to get divorced. And by
(32:51):
the time his divorce was done, he was seventy one
years old, and he ran into his high school sweetheart,
believe it or not, whose husband had passed away, and
they got remarried and they've been extremely happily married for
the last six years. And I think a lot of
people would have thought sixty eight years old, Like, what's
(33:12):
he thinking?
Speaker 3 (33:12):
He's not good.
Speaker 5 (33:13):
He didn't even think he would get married again. He
just thought that he was going to live his lonely
life when he was done, when he was done, and
he is just so happy now. And what I would
say is that everybody deserves a happy ending. Everybody deserves
to live a life where they're not walking on eggshells
every time they go home and are just miserable or
don't even want to go home because of what's waiting there.
(33:33):
And I think that the biggest lesson from that is
everyone deserves to be happy. And that I always think
of him that he has a happy ending. He stays
in touch with me, and I I just love it.
Speaker 2 (33:47):
Yeah, I think that is. I mean, look, it's in
many ways painful. It's a loss of you know, a
chunk of your life. So there's that sense of loss.
But as you point out, I think that there's a
sense of relief cases and as you know, and you
know it's not everything works. And you know, there's a
(34:08):
term that I've often used, which is radical acceptance. You know,
it is what it is, and it doesn't mean that
you can't do anything right. It just means you accept
it and you need to move on and plan something else.
So I think that that's a valuable lesson anything else
you want to add ten to your experiences.
Speaker 4 (34:30):
You know, I think that in my field, I certainly
can't make these kinds of decisions for clients, but I
can guide people to get resources support and resources. Community
resources help people lean on what's available to them to
make the right decisions for themselves. And you know, the
(34:51):
way our firm practice is law is all about empowerment,
education and empowerment so that someone can get to the
right conclusion for them because we should all have happy
lives and you know, have the second half, a third quarter,
or whatever you want to call it, me the best
it can be. And like I said before, it could
you know, when you're in your fifties, you could be
(35:13):
looking at another fifty years. So you want that to
be the best you can be. And that decision should
not be hasty, whether you stay with someone and rebuild,
because there could be a lot of rebuildings. Say after
the kids go to college, that's a typical time when
you're suddenly looking at someone afresh and maybe you don't
like them much, or maybe you can reinvigorate that relationship,
(35:36):
or maybe it just you know needs to be Maybe
you just need to start over and it's not rehabbable.
But either way, you need a good support system in place.
And if you don't have one, because a lot of
people do have only married friends, at that point, you
kind of got to start all over. So put that
in place and have other people help you make those
(35:57):
kinds of decisions.
Speaker 2 (35:57):
I would say, right right. So we just have a
few more minutes before the end of the show. We're
going to do a wrap up, but I think we're
going to take another quick break and then we'll come
back with our final thoughts from Jennifercona and Sandra Radna.
So don't go away. We does have a quick wrap up.
Speaker 6 (36:15):
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(36:36):
twice at one hundred and fifty two pounds. In all
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a creative spirit whose talents have taken her to the
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(36:59):
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a fruitful career doing what she loves. Listen Saturday mornings
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heartwarming stories and interesting talk on the BBM Global Network.
Speaker 7 (37:25):
Are you struggling to care for elderly parents or a spouse?
Do you wonder if being a caregiver is making you sick?
Are you worried about taking time off work to care
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(37:45):
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Radio show for caregivers and aging adults Wednesday evenings, six Pacific,
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(38:08):
plus my caregiving library. Online caregiver support programs and programs
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Speaker 2 (38:26):
Welcome back, folks again. We're talking today with attorneys Jennifercona
and Sandra Radna about great divorce. Before we continue, I
just wanted to let you know that if your friends
or colleagues miss this live show, don't worry. They could
always listen to replays of my conversation on the Bulbrave
TV YouTube channel or just click on forty five forward playlist.
(38:48):
You can listen to audio replays on many major platforms
like Spotify, Apple Podcasts, iHeartRadio, and Amazon Music. So, going
back and forth as we are between sort of the
micro and macro, I want to have Sender pick up
some stuff about, you know, the pragmatics of health insurance
and COBRA if necessary in these cases, of great divorce.
Speaker 3 (39:10):
So in the.
Speaker 5 (39:11):
Issue the case of great divorce, health insurance is a
very big issue. People are very concerned about losing their
health insurance. So I discussed before that we might wait
till Medicare kicks in. But what we do with the
if the parties are still working. We put in the
stipulation of settlement, which is a document that you live
by when you get divorced when the health insurance will end.
(39:33):
So by law, once you get divorced, you don't have
to have your spouse on your health insurance. So we
might maybe do a separation agreement, a legal separation until
the parties are reaching Medicare age. If the money's spouse
is still working and they're getting health insurance, do the job.
Speaker 3 (39:50):
Cobra would be in effect for.
Speaker 5 (39:52):
However long, and once it ended with the divorce, they
would be able to continue to health insurance with COBRA.
The other thing that's it's important for the listeners to
know is if somebody owns a business or if the
children are.
Speaker 3 (40:05):
Worried about what's going to happen to the house. We
refer to.
Speaker 5 (40:08):
Those different agreements within the divorced stipulation of settlements so
if there's an agreement with regard to the division of
the business or what's going to happen with the business
that's referred to in the agreement, And I'll ask Jennifer
to talk a little bit about trust because that's something
that we refer to. Also, if a house is being
protected in a trust for the children, I would refer
(40:30):
to that or to life insurance policy. So maybe Jennifer
could talk a little bit about that mechanism.
Speaker 2 (40:36):
Great go ahead.
Speaker 4 (40:38):
So, especially with gray divorce and silver splitters, at that
time in their lives, you're looking at protecting assets for
launcher care purposes. So a person may want to start
at that point by putting a house in a trust,
maybe other assets as well, So that's you know, medicaid
as a protection trust. So at that point you're looking
(41:00):
at the five year look back period. So the sooner
the better, someone should be engaging in that kind of
asset protection planning. And once divorced, you could know you
no longer have the option of spousal refusal planning. So
that's the key point here in terms of life insurance trust.
That's for estate tax planning purposes. And again once divorced,
(41:21):
if you're a single person, you don't have that the
state tax planning portability of maximizing, you know, by doubling
your federal and New York state state tax benefits. So
it's another consideration. You're a state tax planning profile is
going to change entirely and you're going to need to
revamp your whole plan there as well.
Speaker 2 (41:44):
Now I guess, well, I guess you have to sort
of settle what happens to things assets like the house
before you then can put them in trust for purposes
of protection for medicaid planning purposes, right, I mean right, Well.
Speaker 5 (41:57):
And it's two different things. So there's a cauld be
put in for medicaid planning purposes, and it could be
put in because if the child, for example, is going
to be a sole beneficiary of the trust, and the
child is worried about losing that house, it could be
put in for that purpose too, and a trust that
is irrevocable, and this way the child feels comfortable, the
(42:17):
adult child feels comfortable that if the a parent gets remarried,
that it's not going to go to somebody else or
they're not going to sell it and leave them with nothing.
So again, it's just something to make everybody comfortable and
that helps in the relationship also. So sometimes there's multiple properties,
we might want to discuss what's going to happen to
each property, and you can work with a trust in
(42:40):
the state's attorney to make sure either in a will
or buy a document or buy a trust. Maybe if
there's three children and there's three houses, to make sure
that the houses are going to go to each child.
So the stipulation of settlement, which is the divorce really
works hand in hand with the other agreements that are done.
Speaker 3 (42:57):
In planning.
Speaker 5 (42:58):
Everything is planning, and when there's planning, everything goes smoothly.
When there's not planning, then it becomes very difficult later
on for the family when we're trying to figure it out.
So one of the things Jennifer mentioned is people forgetting
to change things. So what we do is, once a
party gets divorced, when it's a dumb distipulation of settlement,
(43:19):
which is a long document it could be fifty to
eighty pages long, we give them a closing letter that
kind of gives them a bridge version of here's everything
that needs to be done, and here's what you need
to do now. Because it's easier for someone to look
at something that's three pages long that says here's the
dates when you have to do everything, then to look
(43:40):
at the whole document, even though they'll look at that
document here and there, and even with that, our clients
will call us and say when was I supposed to
do this? Or when does this do? Or what should
I do? But if you give them a checklist, which
it sounds like Jennifer does the same thing that we do.
If you give them a checklist, then they know, okay,
I have to do all of these things out right.
Speaker 2 (44:01):
And one thing on the flip side of the assets
that you mentioned me too before SOUNDRA is just on
the liabilities. What happens to the debt that the family has.
Speaker 5 (44:12):
Well, the debt is something that should be taken care
of as part of the divorce, so they shouldn't be
leaving debt on the table. So we try to take
care of everything so the debts are split the same
way as the assets are, so if there are debts,
we want to have all of that taken care of beforehand.
Speaker 3 (44:29):
And then we.
Speaker 5 (44:30):
Also add that neither party can accumulate debt or incurred
debt in the other party's name once we have this
stipulation of settlement and we talk about what each person
is going to be responsible for if there weren't enough
assets to get rid of all the debt and pay
off the debt.
Speaker 2 (44:46):
Right, right, So any advice or for someone over fifty
who's thinking about divorce but it feels like it you
can think about what to do before it's too late.
I mean, you know it's I mean, planning is part
of it. I mean, and of course I suppose the
(45:06):
mediation could be part of it, Like wait a minute, right,
this is where we're headed. But also we.
Speaker 5 (45:11):
Talked about the difference between mediation and a litigated divorce.
Mediation is one person that's sitting with both parties to
try to discuss the major issues. So the issues are
always who's going to stay in the marital residents. There's
no custody issues anymore because the children are usually adults.
But then the rest is division of the marital assets.
And the biggest problem that people have.
Speaker 3 (45:33):
Is they don't know what assets they have.
Speaker 5 (45:36):
So the less money spouts, for example, might never have
dealt with anything.
Speaker 3 (45:41):
They don't know what they really have.
Speaker 5 (45:42):
So if someone's thinking about it, start getting familiar with
what assets you have, what do you own, what are
your financials? Do you have a brokerage account? How are
things titled? Where are documents? And the assets could be
anywhere from stocks, brokerage accounts, crypto currency, digital assets, real estate, cars, vehicles,
(46:06):
whatever it is. You should know where everything is and
how it's titled, because it's very difficult once the divorce
starts to find those things if you don't know about
them already.
Speaker 8 (46:15):
Yeah, and that's the same thing for ELI law planning
and estate planning. You have to know where all of
your assets are, who's name they're in, the some substance
of them. So it's really all about getting your ducks.
Speaker 4 (46:29):
In a row, gathering all that information so that we
can adequately deal with that. So it works the same
way for Sandra as it does for the planning that
I have to do, and then we take it from
there and we're able to deal with the information and
deal with it properly because we don't want to have surprises, right.
We don't want unknown things to pop up through the
(46:51):
process because then we can't handle it properly.
Speaker 3 (46:55):
Right.
Speaker 5 (46:56):
One of the things that we always put in our
agreements is if someone did not disclose something and we
find it out after the divorce, that the spouse that
it was not disclosed to will still get fifty percent
in the future. So if it pops up later on,
so someone can't feel like they pulled the fast one
on someone, we can always if we find that out,
they could still be entitled to it. So that's just
(47:16):
really the safety net. But the more you know before
you start the process, the better. Yeah, and that's the
most important thing.
Speaker 2 (47:25):
Yeah, agreed, Just and think about what Buffy said. Yeah,
I think the essence of knowing this stuff is important
no matter what the circumstance is. So in the case
of just you know, elder law planning, you know, I
think one of the issues that came up in my
family is, so it's not a divorce, but if one
of the spouses suddenly dies and the other spouse doesn't
(47:47):
know this information, Yeah, that's and it's not uncommon, right,
I Mean my family had sort of a traditional you know,
breakdown of tasks and assignments and responsibilit My dad had
the assets, my mom had the monthly budgeting, but didn't
know what about the assets. So it's important even you know,
(48:09):
because that's a sudden break. It's not a force, but
it's a death and you need to know this information.
Speaker 5 (48:15):
So yeah, some people, some spouses don't even know how
much they spend a month. They don't know how much
they need to live on because there's just they just
use the checkbook or they just use the credit card.
So you really have to know how much do I
need a month to live on before you can even
start a divorce, because if you don't know those numbers,
(48:35):
you might just accept something as a settlement that doesn't
allow you to live the lifestyle that you're accustomed to
or even close to it. It doesn't have to be exactly
the same, but you have to be able to afford
a place to live and to buy food and have
a car to drive and put gas in it. So
those are really important things to know. So planning is
(48:55):
always key.
Speaker 4 (48:56):
Great planning is always key, and education and resources are always.
Speaker 2 (49:00):
Key, right right, Well, on that note, I want to
thank you both of you, Jennifer and Senator for a
great show. You crammed a lot in uh people could
listen to it a podcast again and review it because
it's a lot to retain. But I want to thank
you for a terrific conversation. Again, just if people want
to contact you, what's the best way to do that, Jennifer.
Speaker 4 (49:25):
So for me it is six three one three nine
zero five thousand, or our website which is Konaelderlaw dot com.
Speaker 5 (49:32):
Okay, and my phone number is six three one seven
five four six three eight two and my website is
Radnelaw dot com.
Speaker 3 (49:41):
R A d n A law dot com.
Speaker 2 (49:45):
Great. Okay. So, once again, folks, this has been ronra Well,
the host of forty five Forward on BOWLBRATV. Thanks for
spending the hour of me and I always learn from
my own shows, and I hope you do too. I
want to thank also my near Alex, who's part of
a terrific team that guides me through every week. And
so folks, be sure to join me next Wednesday at
(50:07):
seven pm Eastern time. I'll be talking to Emiliano Vegas.
She's the author of a recent book, Let's Change the World,
which offers a practical and encouraging guide for people, no
matter what their age, who want to spur positive change
through their professional organization. So, folks, until that time, keep
(50:27):
moving forward. Forty five Forward.
Speaker 1 (50:35):
This has been forty five Forward with host Ron Rowell.
Tune in each week as Ron tackles the many aspects
of health, finance, family and friends, housing, work, and personal pursuits,
all as part of an integrated plan and to take
charge of your unretiring life during these uncertain times. Wednesdays,
(50:58):
seven pm Eastern on the Bold Brave TV Network, powered
by B two Studios
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