The Legal Issues 133
Final Settlement Payments
It’s possible to love a human being if you don’t know them too well.
—Charles Bukowski
In some situations, it can become quite cumbersome to actually
physically divide each individual asset in the fifty-fifty fashion.
(After all, who wants half an ’89 Subaru?) Instead, practical attor-
neys and their clients will prepare a general overall balance sheet
on which all the assets and debts being assumed by each party
are totaled up. Then the party who keeps more of the assets is
required to make some kind of final settlement or equalization
payment to the one who takes less. In this manner you even out
any inequality in the overall settlement. Final settlement or equal-
ization payments are a way of buying your soon-to-be ex-spouse
out of the house, out of your retirement plan, or out of any other
specific asset that one party wants to retain. This is often more
practical than having to sell or literally split up those exact assets
(or their sale proceeds) half-half.
Splitting the (spread)sheets. Obviously, joint bank accounts, joint
stock accounts, etc., are fairly simple to divide. You just go to the
bank or brokerage and start up two separate accounts, each con-
sisting of half the original account value. But retirement plans,
’52 Chevys, houses, business interests, yachts, jewelry or antiques
are a bit more difficult to physically divide. They may have to be
sold (often at reduced values) and their proceeds split. The best
approach to dividing assets of this type is often to place an indi-
vidual value on each item being retained by each party, total them
all up, and then have whoever is keeping more “stuff” make an
offsetting cash final settlement payment for one-half of the amount
by which the total amount of the assets being taken by that spouse
exceeds the value of those assets being retained by the other.
Attorneys’ Fees
Marriage has teeth, and him bite very hot.
—Jamaican proverb
Finally we come to my personal favorite item of divorce settlements
—attorneys’ fees. Just kidding—Not! The main misconception