Help clients manage through divorce

Divorce is never easy. So your clients may lean on you if their marriages break down.

The key to reducing a client’s financial stress is helping him organize his financial information as early as possible so he can effectively work with his spouse and any lawyers.

Make it clear that you’ll need a lot of information about their assets and wishes, but that you can’t give specific advice about how spouses should split assets.

To help you assist clients, here are useful resources. First, here are some tips for starting a conversation about separation and divorce. These Conversation Starters were designed to help you begin discussions with divorcing clients.

Here is a presentation about Canadian divorce laws and facts. And here are articles to help clients understand what’s ahead.

Dealing with divorce

Filing taxes for divorced clients

Must you pay child support for kids over 18?

Divorce leaves business in limbo

Can’t afford a pre-nup? Consider these options Further, here are some checklists to help you assist clients in determining which documents they’ll need to review to account for their assets (those that are and aren’t held jointly) and liabilities.

• Divorce documents checklist
• Divorce asset checklist
• Divorce liabilities checklist

Remember, having productive conversations about difficult subjects can help strengthen your client relationships.

Staff

The staff of Advisor.ca have been covering news for financial advisors since 1998.