The costliest-and most common-AFI errors
As a CPA, a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER® professional, and a Certified Divorce Financial Analyst® professional, I’m well-versed in all the details of divorce. Ask me what “AFI” stands for, and I’ll tell you:
“Always Flogging this Issue.”
Ha!
It’s true. Every single financial problem I’m asked to solve in a divorce case can be traced directly back to the AFI. (Spoiler alert: Don’t wait for one of those “downstream tricky issues” to arise before you contact me. Let me find it, earlier, at the AFI stage of the case.)
In this issue, I’d like to discuss the biggest, most common mistakes I see in “completed” AFIs. Fixing these, mind you, comes with lots of benefits for you:
- Happier clients
- More referrals
- Fewer annoying (and potentially liability-laden) client questions after the case
Let’s dive in.
Missing info
Many divorcing women are scared to enter into the AFI things that they’d paid for while married, for fear that they might look frivolous, and work against them during mediation and/or trial. Things like getting their hair and nails done, or taking family vacations, for example.
But as you know, these represent actual costs that were part of their marital lifestyle, so they need to be documented. And any case the woman brings to the divorce can only get negotiated down, never up, so it’s best to start with as much as possible.
Then there’s the stuff they simply overlook, when it comes to completing the AFI. Such as saving for retirement. Buying Christmas gifts for the kids. All of these things make a real difference in your ability to show a need for spousal maintenance.
I can track this stuff down. With just three months of bank and credit-card statements, I can find things like these, and annual car-registration renewals, property taxes paid outside of escrow… all of that stuff.
Miscalculated numbers
Saving the biggest for last: It’s always amazing (to me, at least) to see how often things like biweekly pay-stubs get miscalculated when it comes time to compute the annual amount. “Two biweekly” pay stubs is not the same as “one monthly” pay stub; I see errors here all the time—from both divorcing women, and their attorneys.
It’s a costly error.
Here’s another: Scrutinizing those pay-stubs to properly calculate the health and dental insurance that’s been deducted from them. I can do this, too.
New: AFI service
Seeing how often improperly-completed AFIs can frustrate attorneys like you, I’ve created an all-new service: I’ll help your divorcing-women clients complete their AFI, within one week of getting the supporting documents (bank and credit-card statements, etc.). And I’ll do it for them for a flat fee of just $495.
So they—and you—will have a good, solid AFI that opposing counsel can’t poke holes in, for a flat fee, in fast time.
Contact me today to get started!
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Contact my office to learn more!
