Articles

When we do, both spouses become our clients, and each signs a separate engagement agreement. We do not treat the couple as one financial household, and we do not advocate for one spouse against the other. Our Certified Divorce Financial Analyst® (CDFA®) team looks at each person's financial situation independently and helps both understand how different settlement options may affect them after the divorce.

Florida law caps durational alimony at the lesser of your spouse’s demonstrated need or 35% of the difference between your net incomes, and for a 25 year marriage the term can run up to 18.75 years. But here is what the statute will not tell you: those are ceilings, not answers. Between zero and the cap sits a negotiation, and the spouse who walks in with better prepared numbers usually walks out with the better result.

In Florida, the portion of a 401(k) earned during the marriage is a marital asset, and after a 20 year marriage that is usually most or all of it. The starting point for dividing it is equal, but the actual split is a negotiation, and the money moves through a court order called a QDRO that the retirement plan itself must approve. That approval can take months after your divorce is final, which is why the smartest thing in your settlement may not be the 401(k) number at all. It may be the plan for what you live on while...

Three settlement offers can each hand both spouses exactly $1,750,000 on paper and still differ by more than $150,000 in real, after-tax value — before considering liquidity or risk. On a $3.5 million marital estate, the difference comes down to three things: where each dollar lives (pre-tax, taxable, or home equity), which specific stock lots each spouse takes, and when the house is sold. Below is the full math on a realistic Florida estate.