The Financial Decisions That Matter Most When Divorce Happens Near Retirement
Divorcing in your fifties or sixties is a different problem from divorcing at thirty. The house matters, but the retirement accounts usually matter more, and they are the part almost nobody explains clearly. This guide explains them, in about ten pages, without telling you what to agree to.
Get the guideTwelve questions, answered as arithmetic
Each section takes one financial question that comes up in nearly every divorce near retirement and explains what actually decides it. It is written to be saved, printed, and brought to the people helping you.
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Retirement accounts are not all economically equal
A dollar in a 401(k), a Roth and a brokerage account are three different dollars once tax and timing are counted.
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The retirement-account process, and where it fails
A settlement can say one thing and the account can do another. What has to happen between the two, and what proof to keep.
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Pensions
A stream of income is not a balance. How to think about one against the other.
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The house against the retirement assets
Emotion, liquidity, carrying costs and tax all pull in different directions. The guide lays them side by side without choosing for you.
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Taxes and after-tax value
Why the number on the statement is not the number you would receive.
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Healthcare before Medicare
Coming off a spouse’s plan years before 65 can be the largest unbudgeted cost in the whole divorce.
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Social Security
What a marriage of ten years or more can mean, and where the rules are written.
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Can I still retire?
The question underneath every other one, and how it gets tested against spending, taxes, portfolio and dates.
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Cash flow afterwards
One household becomes two. What that does to the plan.
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Beneficiaries and follow-through
The decisions that are easy to forget once the decree is signed, and expensive to leave.
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Questions for your attorney and CPA
What to ask, so the financial terms are settled with the right information in the room.
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What Heritage can and cannot help with
Where our role ends and your attorney’s begins, stated plainly.
Send me the guide
Ten pages on the questions that decide whether retirement still works after a divorce in your fifties or sixties: which accounts are really worth what they say, the house against the retirement money, taxes, healthcare before Medicare, Social Security, and what to ask your attorney before anything is final.
It comes with Questions to Bring to Your Divorce Attorney Before Finalizing the Financial Terms, a one-page list to bring to your next meeting with counsel.
Who this is for
People roughly fifty to sixty-five who are considering divorce, in the middle of one, in settlement discussions, or recently finished, and who have real retirement savings on the table. If the retirement accounts are the largest thing being divided, this was written for you.
What it is not
It is not legal advice, and it does not tell you what you are entitled to or what settlement to accept. Legal rights, marital-property questions, settlement language and the court orders that divide retirement plans belong to your attorney. The guide helps you understand the financial consequences of the choices in front of you, so the conversations with your attorney and your CPA start from better questions.
That is also the line Heritage works within. We show what a proposed division would actually produce, what it costs in tax, and what it leaves for the retirement you still have to fund. Your attorney handles the law. See how divorce financial planning works.
Meet the team
David Fortosis, CFP®
Owner & Lead Advisor
Charles Freeman, CFA, EA
Chief Investment Officer
Tracy Furman
Tax Director
Jeff Goodman
Retirement Income Specialist