What Papers Did You Keep After Divorce?

Hi F.-

I would get a LARGE footlocker...and just 'toss' everything in there...

Speaking for myself, 'our' divorce was initiated (by me) in early 2003...was not finalized until dec 2005.

I have been in and out of court at LEAST once a year since (his 'non' payment issues).

I hope these kinds of issues will be non existent for you...

But for me...just putting my 'trunk' (of junk) on wheels has proven a GOOD thing for the myriad court visits.

My lawyer is mostly on top of things...BUT my documents have proven helpful .

I leave them in the basement garage...and only look at them prior to court.

Best luck!
michele/cat

One of my best friends divorced her creep husband a few years ago and she, like all of my other divorced friends, kept every single scrap of paperwork. She said that you just never know what you'll need for taxes or court or anything else.

When I divorced, I made sure I had:

* copies of all the tax returns we filed while we were married
* our marriage license/certificate
* my certified copy of our divorce degree
* year end statements for credit cards, 401K, investments, etc.
* letter removing me from his checking account and his from mine
* my birth certificate and our daughter's (we both had official stamped copies)

I only had to reference my divorce decree for my security clearance.

I'm sorry you are going through this.

marriage license-copies of all financial papers, notes, deeds, investments, IRA's, life insurance, etc. Good luck.

My final decree has an accounting of everything from disclosures etc, so I kept a certified copy of that. We also had to go back to modified the custody orders, so I keep a copy of the newest custody order.

Everything else got shredded. My attorney keeps copies for a handful of years, so if I need something I guess I could get it from her.

Only the final decree, but we were young, had no kids and no stuff, so it was very simple and nothing to ever really need to look back at. He got the TV and the DVD player and I got the dining room set and living room furniture. He took the bed frame and mattress and I got the dressers. Bing-bang.

When I went to Foster Parent Classes I had to make a trip of 200 miles to the county court house to get copies of my first divorce decree. I hadn't kept it once I got married again. My daughter was a teen and I didn't think I'd need it. She lived with her dad by then so I didn't feel I needed to keep it for any reason.

I had to get all sorts of records for different things over the years.

So my advice is to keep it all in a file of some sort that would keep the originals neat and tidy. I also never use the original for anything. I always make a few copies and keep them in the file too.

When we got guardianship of my 2 grand kids we went straight to Staples and made about 10 copies of the decree and took them to the county health department for WIC stuff, the pediatrician's office, DHS so we could get them on medical cards, the county mental health facility so we could get the counseling for the kids started, and to the local schools they had been going to that their mom had signed the papers for.

So now, any time we need a copy of the decree or any other paper we can simply call this agency or that one and they have a copy in the kids files.

This way, plus having the originals, is very handy.