The Financial Untangling After the Divorce Judgment.

Getting your final divorce judgment can feel like crossing a finish line.

After months—or sometimes years—of negotiations, paperwork, financial disclosures and difficult decisions, you finally have a signed judgment. Your divorce is officially over.

Except there is one more important step: making sure your financial life actually reflects what the judgment says.

A divorce judgment can award you an account, a house or a share of a retirement plan. It can assign a debt to your former spouse. But the judgment itself doesn't necessarily transfer every asset, close every account or remove your name from every financial obligation.

Think of the period immediately after divorce as the financial untangling phase. Here are some of the things that deserve your attention.

Separate Your Everyday Finances

If you haven't already, establish bank accounts and credit cards in your name alone.

Just as important, make sure joint accounts that are supposed to be closed actually get closed. That may include checking and savings accounts, credit cards, lines of credit and other accounts that were easy to overlook during the divorce. Even if the joint account has a zero balance, close it.

Don't assume that because your former spouse agreed to stop using an account, your financial institution considers your responsibility for it over.

Keep an Eye on Your Credit

Obtain your credit reports and review them carefully.

Look for joint accounts that remain open, debts you thought had been closed, or anything else you don't recognize. Continue monitoring your credit after the divorce so that you can identify problems early.

This becomes particularly important when your former spouse was assigned responsibility for a joint debt.

Don't Confuse "You Pay the Loan" With "I'm Off the Loan"

This is an important distinction.

Your divorce judgment may say that your former spouse is responsible for the mortgage, car loan or another joint debt. But your divorce judgment does not rewrite your contract with the lender.

If your name remains on the loan, you may remain obligated to the lender regardless of what your divorce judgment says.

If your agreement requires your former spouse to refinance a joint obligation to remove your name, follow through and make sure the refinance actually happens.

Retitle Property

If the judgment awards a house, vehicle or other titled property to one spouse, make sure title is actually transferred.

For real property, that may mean preparing and recording a deed. Vehicles may require DMV paperwork. Other assets may have their own transfer requirements.

A surprising number of people discover years later that an asset was awarded in the divorce but never formally retitled.

Finish Your QDROs

If retirement benefits were divided in your divorce, don't put the Qualified Domestic Relations Order—or QDRO—in the proverbial drawer to deal with someday.

A QDRO is a separate court order used to divide benefits under many qualified retirement plans. Your divorce judgment saying that you are entitled to part of a retirement account is not the same thing as completing the steps necessary to receive it.

QDROs are highly specialized documents, and this is not a place where I recommend trying to save money by doing it yourself. I recommend hiring an attorney who specializes in QDROs to draft the order, navigate the plan's particular requirements, obtain the necessary court approval and submit it to the plan administrator. The relatively modest cost of having a QDRO prepared correctly is money very well spent when significant retirement benefits are at stake.

Update Your Beneficiaries

Review the beneficiary designations on your:

• retirement accounts and pensions

• life insurance policies

• investment and brokerage accounts

• bank accounts with payable-on-death designations

• other accounts or benefits with named beneficiaries

Don't assume that divorce automatically produces the beneficiary result you want on every type of asset. And when retirement benefits are involved, plan documents and court orders can matter. The IRS specifically advises contacting the retirement plan administrator to change beneficiaries for survivor benefits not governed by a court order.

Revise Your Estate Plan

Your old estate plan was created for a different family and financial structure.

Meet with an estate-planning attorney to review your will, trust, powers of attorney, health-care directives and other estate-planning documents.

This is also a good opportunity to reconsider who should make financial and medical decisions for you if you cannot make them yourself.

Have a Post-Divorce Meeting With Your CPA

Divorce can change your filing status, withholding, estimated tax payments, dependent-related tax issues and other aspects of your tax picture. The IRS recommends reviewing withholding after divorce and, when appropriate, submitting a new Form W-4.

Rather than waiting until April to discover a problem, consider meeting with your CPA soon after your divorce is finalized.

Build a Budget for Your New Life

Divorce often means taking the same income that once supported one household and stretching it across two.

Create a realistic post-divorce budget based on what your life costs now, not what it cost while you were married.

Include expenses that may previously have been handled by your spouse or absorbed into the household budget: insurance, home maintenance, subscriptions, taxes, children's expenses, travel, retirement contributions and irregular annual expenses.

The goal is to understand your new financial reality so you can make intentional decisions.

Rebuild Your Emergency Fund

Divorce can consume cash.

Attorney's fees, moving costs, deposits, new furniture, refinancing and establishing a second household can significantly reduce savings.

Once the dust settles, begin rebuilding an emergency fund in your own name.

Financial independence isn't only about separating assets. It's also about creating enough financial cushion that an unexpected expense doesn't become a crisis.

Changing Your Name? Finish the Paper Trail

If you are returning to a prior name, make a list of everywhere your name needs to change.

That may include Social Security, your driver's license or passport, employer records, banks, credit cards, insurance policies, investment accounts and other financial institutions.

For tax purposes, the name on your return should match the name on file with the Social Security Administration.

The Judgment Is a Beginning as Well as an Ending

There is an understandable desire to close the door when the divorce judgment finally arrives.

But before you put the divorce file away, take some time to make sure the financial terms you spent so much time negotiating have actually been carried out.

Close the accounts. Transfer the property. Complete the QDROs. Update your beneficiaries and estate plan. Check your credit. Talk with your CPA. Create a new budget.

Then you can begin shifting your attention away from dividing the life you had and toward building the life you want next.

This article provides general educational information and is not intended as legal, tax, financial or estate-planning advice. Individual circumstances vary, and you should consult the appropriate professional regarding your particular situation.