The Divorce Agreement: What Needs To Be Included In This Important Contract

You and your spouse are about to sign one of the most important contracts of your life.

You are getting divorced or legally separating. Hopefully, you have both consulted with attorneys who will carefully draft and review your agreement. But it never hurts to be safe and make sure that everything is included that you will need to lead your separate lives.

Here is a simple checklist for your divorce agreement, also known as a Stipulation of Settlement and sometimes also called a Separation Agreement.

Be sure your divorce agreement includes the following:

1. Custody and decision-making
2. Visitation/ parenting/ access schedule, including a regular schedule for weekdays and weekends, holidays, and vacation
3. Child support, including the CSSA guidelines deviation language when appropriate
4. Payment for add-on expenses such as child-care, unreimbursed medical expenses, dental and therapeutic expenses, orthodontia, optical including checkups, contact lenses, educational expenses including private school if applicable, college expenses, room and board credit where applicable, camp and extracurricular activities
5. Medical insurance
6. Emancipation events as to when support and add-on expense contributions end
7. Dependency exemptions- who is getting the children, are you rotating or doing something different, and what happens if one of you doesn’t qualify for the deduction as your income is high enough that you have phased out
8. Life insurance for children and spouses to cover support obligations and obligations for any payout of equitable distribution
9. Health insurance for the children and COBRA for your spouse perhaps
10. Spousal maintenance, also known as maintenance or alimony
11. Sale or buyout of real property including but not limited to purchase or sale of marital residence, price reductions if the property is going to be sold, which broker will be used (how is the broker going to access the property to show the property to potential buyers), and is someone going to have exclusive use of the home until the sale?
12. Refinancing of any mortgages or home equity lines, including timing and sale if it does not occur, as well as price reductions in the event of sale, procedures for
13. Payment of expenses for property,y including the real property and school taxes, utilities, insurance, maintenance such as lawn and pool care, repairs, capital gains taxes
14. Division of pensions, 401(k)s, IRAs, restricted stock units, options, bonuses as applicable, including whether someone will need to have a Qualified Domestic Relations Order drafted and which pension actuary will you use and how will the costs be divided.
15. Division of bank accounts, brokerage accounts, and other accounts.
16. Division of credit card and mileage points and perks
17. Division of cash surrender value of life insurance
18. Division of any business; has it been valued, and if so, what percentage will someone receive? Will that be in the form of a lump sum payout, or will it be in the form of stock in a company?
19. Division of personal property such as cars, furnishings, jewelry, watches, handbags and more
20. The allocation of responsibility for income taxes owed, who is getting refunds, and what happens in an audit.
21. Payment of counsel fees, expert fees, and perhaps the fees for the attorney for your children.
22. And what happens if someone breaches or defaults? There should be language to address this issue.

The foregoing list is not exhaustive, but it is a very good start to figuring out if your Stipulation of Settlement or Separation Agreement includes the items that you need to ensure that you can move on with your new life.