Divorce Tips: How to Negotiate Your Needs
The art of negotiating a fair and favorable deal means preparation. You can accomplish this by putting together an in depth list of all the things in your house that you feel you must have. These priority items should all go to the very top of your list. You want to arrange it so that you have a clear idea of what the critical things are, which you will be unwilling to compromise. Conversely, you want to know what you can let go of with a grain of salt.
Let us say that the house itself is on the top of our list and it is a must have since you run a business out of part of it, or something similar. This may or may not necessarily be a very well founded 'must have' but it will do for now. Let us say then the house is a must, but what about the furniture? All of the sofas and chairs would be nice to have but are not a must. Heck, you can get along with out furniture, right? Yet not as critical as the house itself. Your spouse might have an entirely different 'must have.' His or her 'must have' might be the cars, the summer house or the boat. Maybe it is the computer and all the office equipment, yet the house means nothing.
What you need to remember is: How do you know what to get if you don't' really know what you want? How will you know how to get it? Moreover, you don't want to come away from a settlement with a vague notion you were screwed. You want to come away with a concrete notion that you compromised and got most of the things that were highly important to you. This is something that requires the willingness to sit down and prepare. You do that and you'll have no problem when it comes time for the art of negotiation. So remember: The only thing that is not negotiable is your need to prepare.
Divorce Tips: Settling the Smart Way
When you have a list of all your needs and wants, it is still best to be flexible when it comes to specific goals on how best to obtain them. For instance, if you want the house, you have to ask yourself: What is the best way for me to get it? You could demand that it be awarded to you, buy out the ex, or that it be sold. You could both split the proceeds or you could cash out the ex. The point here is that there is more than one way to skin a cat. Be flexible, so many variables affect how easy or how hard it is to get what you want. If you are flexible and you do your homework you should not have a problem.
Maybe your spouse is even willing to negotiate on some things that might be difficult for one spouse but is easier for the other – like fixing the leaking roof in order to sell the house or an optimum price? Whatever it is that you choose to focus on, be sure to know the legal and financial ramifications of all decisions you make. Yes you can take different avenues to your goals, but make sure you don't get carjacked along the way.
If things get a little complicated and the negotiation is not quite what you expected – such as a waiver of maintenance fees for this or that, then consult with your attorney and find out exactly what the deal is and ramifications, if any. Be careful not to agree to anything that might be virtually impossible to enforce years later – like maintenance costs on a second rental property. If you follow this advice, you are sure to put yourself in the best possible position.
Divorce Tips: Understanding What Your Spouse Wants
Knowing exactly how your spouse will come at you during a negotiation is extremely important. Such knowledge will help you leverage your own wants and needs to get exactly what you were hoping to get. It is one thing if, privately, you have decided you can't live without the collection of old Elvis records. It is quite another to make that clear to your spouse. After all, if you put it high up on your list of wants then you will loose out if it happens he or she doesn't care about the Elvis collection at all. The message: Don't' trade away something important for something they would probably have given.
The following analogy might be hard to relate to if you are a woman, but men, think of the NFL when they draft football players. You take the best player (items on your list) available and then it is the next team's turn (your Ex-spouse's) to do the same. They take the next best player and so on until all the players are taken. You don't want your coveted first round pick to be a player that nobody else would have taken until the middle round, would you? No, you wouldn't. Let that undervalued pick ride, then grab it low in the negotiation for next to nothing. That is the secret of getting what you want during a divorce negotiation.
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