QDROs, Pensions, and the Divorce Mistakes That Cost You

Divorce is already one of the hardest things a person can go through. What makes it worse is finding out months or years later that a financial decision made in the middle of all that pain cost you tens of thousands of dollars in taxes you never planned for. That's what this episode is about.

Jamie Lima, CDFA and CFP at Allegiant Divorce Solutions, is back on the show to break down what most people completely miss when divorce and tax season collide. We're talking about filing status, dependent claims, retirement account splits, pension valuations, and the one clause you need in every divorce agreement before you sign anything. This isn't theory. This is the stuff that shows up in real cases and wrecks real financial plans.

We walk through a real client situation involving a business, three real estate properties, a 401k, and a distribution nobody saw coming. We get into the QDRO process in plain language, why AI is creating problems in divorce documents right now, and why the number on your pension statement is almost never the right number. If you're going through a divorce, recently finalized one, or know someone who is, this episode is required listening.

Watch the full episode on YouTube

Connect with Jamie Lima directly at https://allegiantds.com or find him on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamielima/, Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jamiemlima/, Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jamiemlima/, and X: https://x.com/jamiemlima

If you want to understand how all of this connects to your broader financial picture, book a Power Hour with me at . One hour. Real answers. A plan you can actually use.

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Transcript

The Real Moment: What People Miss When Divorce Meets Tax Season

Jamie Lima 0:21

Well then it's time.

Stoy Hall 0:29

Divorce is emotional. We all understand that. That's why we've got our expert, Jamie back, but also it's tax season and what the hell does that mean when I'm getting a divorce? Whether that's, you finalized it in 2025, you're going through it in 2026, what's that mean? All of those questions come up to play, right? Like. Who gets the child into the dependent? Have you decided who does that? If you had a business together, what happens there? What are all these moving pieces when it comes to taxes, divorce, and the divorce planning situation? Now, obviously we're not CPAs, we're not your accountant. We're not the tax advisors, but we do know the strategy. We can talk about those things. So if you have specific questions, reach out to them. But today, it's all about asking Jamie this one overall. Question, if you will. Mm-hmm. When it comes to divorce, what do you see people miss the most when it comes to their taxes?

Why Your CPA and Attorney May Both Be Leaving Money on the Table

Jamie Lima 1:24

Well, they miss it entirely, right? They, they are so wound up and so wrapped up in the emotional pieces of the divorce, and there's, there's the element of like, you know, I just want to like, you know, get back at that person and like, I want to, you know, I wanna fight for this thing and fight for that thing. And they're, and they're fighting about. Things and property and this thing, you know, like all it's, it's just, it can be a bit of a disaster as, as I'm sure you're well aware, and there's this looming aspect or concept taxes that everybody ignores. And that's where we as financial professionals come in on the divorce side of things and have to reign everybody back in and remind them of like, Hey, like if you make this decision, you better be prepared for this tax bill or. Not having the flexibility to be able to do the thing that you want to do later, because the tax implications of the decisions that you're making. So I think the, the number one biggest mistake is people ignore it and, and there, but there's so many other underlying components of that that people need to be pay attention to.

Real Client Case Study: Business, Properties, and a Distribution Nobody Saw Coming

Stoy Hall 2:27

And we'll get to some of those for sure. But I think part of the reason it's I forgotten or just never brought up is also. There's a, and I'm not gonna talk shit about you all, all of you, accountants and CPAs, I promise. But like a lot of them haven't been through a divorce situation with their clients per se. Mm-hmm. Or the attorneys don't exactly know how the, the tax piece, uh, is portrayed. And I think that's the. I guess that's a misnomer of things from people they think all professionals know all of the different strategies and tools and moving parts, which, yeah, in general I can say most of us do, right? We know that if you wanna split your assets, there's a process to doing so. Right? Whether it's the business or you know, your IRAs or your home, whatever. Mm-hmm. Pretty much we all know how to get that done, but what we rarely do, what I rarely see is like, well, how does that affect me? Going forward and how's that affect me from a tax perspective, right? Because it's not as simple as, Hey, you know, Jamie and I are gonna get a divorce and there's a million dollars and we just split it. Well, cool. But it came from four different areas that all have their mm-hmm. Different tax situation, let alone now it changes your entire estate plan. So I find it interesting that people do forget that piece when it's like the one thing in our lives that we all stress about every year, right? Like there is tax season every single year and everyone always stresses about it. But we, we forget about it in the divorce perspective. So while we dive into more of little specifics when it comes to that, I have a client situation mm-hmm. Who they got divorced in 2025, uh, had a business together and officially finalized in, in December. Not only do they have a business, but they have three real estate pieces and Ks and, and life insurance. Really the full and. Now, I know I'm roleplaying this a little bit because obviously it's from my own clientele, but when we did this, we talked about, okay, do you wanna do a quadro with a four oh K? They actually decided not to. They split assets where he, he got to keep his 401k, but she got the value in the life insurance and the value in one property to kind of equalize, right? They also decided that for the 2025 season, they're just going to. Decide to file jointly and keep it as if they are married for that year from a business perspective. Now, 2026 happens, and we get this question of, well, there was, there was a bonus, there was a distribution, there was an event that happened in 2025 prior to the divorce that just got funded. Now in a situation like that, and I know you're not an accountant. But how can that be rectified beforehand when it comes to the divorce decree or the planning for something that potentially might be unforeseen?

Jamie Lima 5:22

You're talking about the last piece?

Stoy Hall 5:24

Yeah, specifically the last piece. Yeah.

Jamie Lima 5:26

Can I have some more details about that last piece there? So there's, yeah, there's a distribution that hasn't it, it's from the business. The distribution hasn't happened yet.

Stoy Hall 5:34

It. Well, technically, let's see, March. No, it hasn't. It'll be, it'll be coming now. So they had, um, they had an investment out there Uhhuh, um, from years and years ago.

NoBS Wealth 5:45

Sure.

Stoy Hall 5:45

That there was no paper trace on. Right. No one calculated it into their financial plan in the divorce plan. And now we get a distribution and it hit. Now they're like, well, whose is it? What do we do? You know what I mean? Um,

Jamie Lima 6:01

yeah.

Stoy Hall 6:02

How do you deal with when

Jamie Lima 6:03

mm-hmm.

Stoy Hall 6:04

Something occurred that you, you had no plan for? How is that dealt with?

Asset Tracing: When Something Shows Up That Wasn't in the Agreement

Jamie Lima 6:08

Th this piece is where we, where we call our asset tracing, you know, the asset tracing that we do, and, and you, and really you're just going back, working backwards from that, that point of that distribution. Right. So, um, my questions would be. Where did it come? Where did that, where did that investment come from? Right. Was that an inheritance that grandpa gave the husband? 30 years ago as a graduation gift and now, and it was never, nobody, ever, nobody ever benefited from it. Right. You know, the, the other, the spouse didn't benefit from it. Uh, there were no other distributions. We need to ask some more questions about this because if it was one of those things where it was an investment that, because this happens all the time, you know this, I mean, you have, you have clients that receive stock certificates from. Their grandparents when stock certificates were an actual thing and they realized, oh my gosh, like I, I had these things sitting in my attic or my, our safe deposit box or whatever. Even though there's no, there isn't a, you know, ongoing, ongoing distributions, the source of that investment matters. So if it is truly sold and separate, then that's an, that's an easy slam. Dunk. But if it was one of those things where it was like, well, you know, every quarter we got, you know,$400, you know, from share, uh, uh, what is it? Uh, uh, share. What's the name of the company? Coffee Share. Coffee Share is a big one. Right? Coffee Share. Has they manage like those types of one-off investments for people in, in the record keeping of the, of those investments? And if we get a quarterly invest, uh, distribution or maybe even an annual distribution during the length of our marriage, but we just, both of us just were oblivious to it and forgot, forgot that it even existed. That's a marital asset, right? That is something that is up for division in the divorce along with this subsequent distribution. So you've gotta kind of go backwards here and, and sort through, like where, where did that actually come from? Um. Some other things that came up and I, I have some other thoughts about the, the, the case study here that that could be red flags. But to answer that question, it's really just a matter of like going back in the time machine, so to speak, and looking at like where did this come from? Who benefited and how, and what is the status of that, that investment today?

Stoy Hall 8:20

Do you usually see when those happen? That like, I know everyone's situation's different. It's always complex. I know this is a complex situation, but like if people are more of the 50 50 route. Is it as simple as, oh, we found this, and usually they just follow along with that 50 50? Or is it usually like, well, and then someone hangs onto it and argues about it and now we have this whole big fight over this new thing that occurred?

Noise vs. Truth: Should You Just File Jointly and Deal With Divorce Next Year?

Jamie Lima 8:46

I, I, I think it, I think it depends on the temperature of the room, so to speak. Like, how was this actual, was this really an amicable divorce? And they, they just wanna part ways and be done with it. That's usually 50 50. Like, okay, I found, found this thing. Don't. Let's make sure we figure out a way to divide this up and we can move on with our lives. In other scenarios, it's, it's the latter. Now we have a new hill we wanna die on, and us as professionals, we're like, okay, but this is like, it's a, it's a$2,000 investment. Do you wanna spend$10,000 on attorney fees to sort this out? Or you just wanna move on with your life? Those are, and that, that, we see that happen all the time. It really, it, it really just depends on, on the, the, the. The case itself.

Stoy Hall 9:31

Is there anything anyone can do within, you know, their agreement from a divorce perspective to. Right in there if this situation does occur. Mm-hmm. Right. Do you ever have it where it's like, Hey, if anything else pops up at some point we're going 50 50 or whatever the split was or whatever the situation was? Or is it truly gonna be a case by Case Hill when they occur?

Jamie Lima 9:50

Yeah, I mean, I, I, I'm not an attorney, so I can't give legal advice as just like, we can give tax advice in this conversation, but I, I, I, I am a mediator and I do mediations. All across the country, you know, all, all the time. And the one line I always put in the agreement for the, for the clients is, should the parties come to, should there be an issue or disagreement over anything that's included in this, in this agreement or anything in know unforeseen in the future. The parties agreed to return back to mediation. To resolve their differences. And by signing that agreement, they now have this backstop where it's like, Hey, you know, you, we said that if something like this comes up, we, this is what we're gonna do. And it, and I think it both keeps the frame of mind of we're gonna try to sort this out on our own instead of involving attorneys. Not that, not that we're trying to take money out of attorney's pockets and they don't do great work. But at the same time, if we can try to keep them out of the court system for these things, that will pop up.'cause they will, inevitably, something will come up inevitably.

Stoy Hall 10:52

I love that adding that line in there.'cause it keeps, it keeps it like we're working on this, right. Uh, like we're gonna keep working on this and not once we're done, we split. We'll never talk again. See you, you know, see you never, yeah. Which again you alluded to, things always pop up. I think I've had four or five clients have a divorce at this point in time and like. Shit happens. Things pop up down the road, you know, two years, three years, four, like things happen and it's okay. I truly believe in mediation and, and being able to step in the middle like you do, because it allows them to come back to the table from. As amicable as possible, as opposed to, you didn't tell me about this, you hid it from me, right? Mm-hmm. And it gets into this thing where they come to a mediator like you, you can just, Hey, this is what happened. This is where we can take care of it, you know, come to a decision. So, yeah. Uh, definitely appreciate you you stepping in doing that. Alright, let's get into some noise versus truce and get your, your mm-hmm. Opinion a little bit about this. And I know people, we keep saying we're not attorneys and accountants, well. Because compliantly, we need to one, uh, two, but we wanna make sure that you, you know, of that. So some of these are gonna be more of an opinion, um, but also an experience from, from us as well. So first one is, and then framed around divorce.

Jamie Lima 12:06

Yep.

Stoy Hall 12:07

Just, just file jointly. It'll be easier next year you can do divorce. Finally, what do you have to say about that?

I Make More, So I Should Claim the Kids

Jamie Lima 12:15

I. Feel like and pertaining to the tax returns. So here's the thing, and Nick, this kind of goes back to your, your case study there that you, you shared my understanding, and again, this is where you need your tax professional to confirm this, but my understanding is the status you take on December 31st at 11:59 PM in your time zone is how you file that year. The sub subsequent, you know, January, February, when you start to do your tax returns. So if you, if you are officially, if you're divorced December 31st at noontime, you now have the ability to go married, filing separately, and I'm sorry, I'm sorry, uh, single you, you should be filing single at that point. Right? Or head or head of household, not necessarily married filings single because you're not. You're not married by that by the end of the year, so that's something that we needed to make sure we, we pay attention to on the status that you take. Is it better? Usually, my personal experience on this also is that you get, you know, higher, higher deductions you can usually benefit from, you know, a higher return, uh, refund if you're anticipating getting one lower tax bill Overall. It's easier to sort out like who's claiming the kids in that last year, because that's also something that we should, we're probably gonna talk about. It seems, it, it, it feels easier, it seems easier to be able to marry filing jointly in that, in that last year, and then figure out what your status is of the next year. But you've gotta be very careful of the timing of the divorce because it could change the rules and what you're, what you're allowed to do and what you're not allowed to do.

Stoy Hall 13:47

Yeah, I would agree. I would agree too. And some people call it like a, a trap of doing so and

Jamie Lima 13:52

mm-hmm.

Stoy Hall 13:53

Again, timing, figure that part out, but it, it just makes it cleaner. It really does, from that perspective. Mm-hmm. It makes it cleaner for that final year and then, and then be able to split, because I, I see it a lot in the next. Topic or take, what we're gonna talk about is I can claim the kids'cause I make more. Right. And the claims of, of the kid deduction is usually one of the bigger contested things because you know who has a more, you know, is there child support? Is there not? Is alimony, is is, I'm taking dependent and I'm. And when we go back to that first one of like the timing, but also like just being simple, it's simpler in that year to do it and then build out your plan after that. Mm-hmm. But what do you have to say for, you know, the take of, Hey, I make more so I'm gonna claim the kids as dependents moving forward.

The QDRO Explained: How to Split Retirement Accounts Without Getting Crushed on Taxes

Jamie Lima 14:42

Yeah. It, it doesn't necessarily work that way. Right? When you start thinking about who's gonna take the kids as far as tax deductions go, there's a, I mean, there's a lot to consider. Number one, this is a negotiation lever you can pull. Right. If you're, if you want something over here and the other side's not ready to give it up, but you know that they want to be able to clean the kids as tax, uh, as as dependents on their tax return for a better tax. Situation at the end of the year. Maybe that's your negotiation point where you're like, all right, I'll, I'll let you have this, uh, I'll let you have that if you let me have this. And that's, you know, negotiation 1 0 1. So that's, it's really more of a negotiation lever. What I see happen 99% of the time is the parents will just alternate years, or one parent will take one kid, another parent will take another, depending on how many children involved. You get to sort, you have to sort that all out. But the other layer to this too, which is important for people to know, and we see this happen a lot, is. If there are special needs scenarios that are involved. You know, you have, uh, someone who's gonna need ongoing care and child support, and that support is gonna be, uh, needed for, for in perpetuity. You know, there's, there's tax. Like who's gonna claim who on the tax return is beneficial, you know, in some respects, depending on who's actually gonna be the primary caregiver for that child. Um, and then don't forget that, you know, the kids can be claimed until the age of 26. Um, well, unless they go on, unless they claim themselves on their own tax return so that you, it's not just when, when they turn 18 and child support is over, you have technically all the way to the age of 26 to be able to claim those kids on your tax returns. So these are all the little nuances you need to take, take into consideration as you're, you're starting through those, talking about those as negotiations.

Stoy Hall 16:21

I really hope people are getting a sense when we do these episodes of like, it's not easy, like it's complex. It's on almost every topic, right? It is truly complex and yeah, emotions are involved, but there's also some of these things that need to be decided. And I know today's episode's a lot about taxes, but it's getting everyone to understand there's a lot of. Things that go into it, but next topic I wanna get your expert lens on and we mm-hmm. Brought it up a little bit is, is the quadro and what's going on with it. Most people, if you don't know about it, obviously you're gonna learn a little bit about it now, but it seems to be like that is one of the. Most often used pieces in, in, in a divorce because of retirement money. Right? Like that's usually what it comes down to. So why don't you enlighten us one

Jamie Lima 17:06

mm-hmm.

Stoy Hall 17:07

Generically what a quadro is. And then let's, let's talk about the updates that have occurred.

Why AI Is Creating Problems in QDRO Documents Right Now

Jamie Lima 17:12

Yeah. A quadro is a very important component of most divorce agreements, right? So, so there's a lot to unpack here, but I'll try to keep it simple. If you have a. K plan, A 4 0 3 B plan, A pension, a deferred compensation, any of the workplace retirement, like benefits that most of us have familiarity with if that asset is subject to division in the divorce, you divide that by way of a domestic relations order, A DRO. The document is drafted by either a drafting service we we, which is work we do. Or by an attorney, you do not wanna do this on your own. That is very complex, uh, more so technical than complex, I should say, some technical nuances to it. But what happens is, is that this document is drafted. At or around the same time, the marital settlement agreement, the divorce decree is drafted and it's packaged together, should be packaged together, sent to the courthouse, all in one packet, and the judge signs off on it, approves the distribution and and so on and so forth. You then take that document and send it to the plan sponsor. Let's just use Fidelity Investments, for example.'cause I worked there for almost 10 years. We sent it to their 401k plan team. They review it. They then qualify it as an approved. Divorce a domestic relations order, and it then becomes a quadro, a qualified domestic relations order. That at that point allows you to separate those retirement assets between the spouses and do so without any tax implications. Party A gets to keep their portion party B now gets to keep their portion, even if they're not an employee of that company. They have an accountant at that there, and they can do whatever they wanna do with it. The, the, the benefit of doing this by the, by the quadro. And, and first off, most plans will only do it with, if you have the quadro in place, but, um, it, it's also a significant tax benefit. And, and, and because a lot of people that we work with need to take distributions out of that account just to move on to their new life, right? They may need to take a depo, take some money out to put a deposit down on a new home, or, um, cover their rent for the next 12 months and or buy, even buy furniture. So they can furnish their new, their new place after the divorce is settled. And by doing that by way of the quadro under the 72 T section, 72 t uh, terms that are out there, you can do that and avoid the, there's a 10% penalty that most people under the age of 59 and a half will have to pay if they take a distribution outta these accounts. You could avoid that penalty. You're still gonna pay income taxes on at a federal and state level if, if state taxes exist. But you're gonna avoid that 10% hit as well by doing it subsequent to the divorce.

Stoy Hall 19:59

See, it was simple folks, right?

Jamie Lima 20:01

Yeah, simple.

Stoy Hall 20:02

There's a lot of technicality behind it. And I,

Jamie Lima 20:04

there there are. I mean, I just, yeah, I just, I, we, I just had a case, right? I literally was emailing them this morning. We've been working on this document for six months. Back and forth with a plan because they wanted these, this I dotted that T crossed and with this verbiage and that verbiage and they can, it can get super technical. Document was sent to the soc document was sent to the attorney for our, for our client. A client attorney decided they're gonna red line a bunch of stuff'cause they don't like the verbiage in it. It has now been sent back to the plan. Rejected. So now we start the process all over. So it is now gonna take us probably close to a year to get this done simply because again, a lot of attorneys understand this stuff, but apparently some, some attorneys do not. And by the attorney being involved in this particular case, it significantly delayed us. So you've gotta know what you're doing.

Stoy Hall 20:56

Not to mention if the plan sponsor's saying This is what we need it, you're almost stuck to what they need.

Jamie Lima 21:03

A hundred

Stoy Hall 21:03

percent is

Jamie Lima 21:04

what? It's a hundred percent.

Stoy Hall 21:06

And, and you're not gonna be able to fight them. They, they got two pockets better attorneys. It's not gonna work. Um,

Jamie Lima 21:10

agreed. Agreed.

Stoy Hall 21:12

What, what's been going on recently with, with Quadro in general

Jamie Lima 21:17

in that particular space? I. What I've seen, to be honest man, is, is people are trying to leverage ai and I, I've seen a couple cases where they're starting to, they're, they're leaning towards leveraging AI and trying to draft some of these documents themselves, avoiding the cost of having an attorney or someone like us prepare this. And I feel like this particular case that I mentioned just a second ago, there was some level of AI involvement. I can't. Confirm that a hundred percent, but I feel like based on the information that was shared with me, the way that they redlined this document, apparently AI hallucinated and gave, if they used it, AI definitely hallucinated and, and gave them wrong information. So, you know, it, it's, and we're seeing a lot more pensions. I don't know if it's just because we work with a lot more government folks, um, you know, the military and postal service and you name it. We're seeing a lot more pensions. You know, and I know you and I both have, you know, a ton of experience on the traditional financial planning side of things. I didn't see them all that much. I felt like, I'm like, wow, this, this is kind of like a dying breed. And now that I'm doing this work, I'm seeing, not every case, but probably 70% of my cases have a pension of some sort involved. And the reality too is that there's nothing, there's nothing boilerplate about it. There isn't one standard quadro everyone that needs to be customized to that plan and the requirements of the plan. It would be nice if it was,'cause then maybe AI assistance would be able to allow us to do this a little bit faster pace. But um, yeah, I think, I think AI's starting to get involved and could be, could be good, could be bad. Time will tell.

Pensions in Divorce: Why the Statement Number Is Almost Never the Right Number

Stoy Hall 22:55

Time will tell. I know we're starting to see it even on the traditional financial planning side. Uhhuh, it's terrifying really, at the end of the day. Yeah, there's efficiencies and stuff that can be done and it can be achieved, don't get me wrong, but throwing all your information into the AI and having it spit back things that it just won't know, even if it was loaded in, could detrimentally affect whatever plan you're putting in place. Whatever agreement, whatever plan. So. Cautious there. I wanna dive into this pension thing because I've ran into it a couple times in the last two weeks. Yes. Which, mm-hmm. Really hasn't been brought up in my career that often, but I'm starting to see it more too.

NoBS Wealth 23:31

Mm-hmm.

Stoy Hall 23:32

Talk us through, for those that maybe have a pension and have been going through this, like how is the nuance of a pension, uh, Quadro or anything in general, a splitting? Mm-hmm. So, uh, different than say the 401k or four three b.

Jamie Lima 23:48

Well, the, the four B and 4 0 1 Ks type of accounts are very, very simple in comparison. This person gets their half, this person gets their half, and they're done, and it's done with, with the pensions. And I'll, I'll give you an example with the pension, I do probably two or three pensions in the state of Alaska every month.

Stoy Hall 24:11

Okay.

Jamie Lima 24:11

Never had an Alaska client until I started doing this work. Now we've got two or three a month that are coming through from the state of Alaska and, and here's an example of how complicated it is or the differences. The state of Alaska has multiple tiers of their pension, depending on your date of hire and their plan changes and the role that you're in, so on and so forth. So you have that piece of it, like it's not just so we then we have to, so we have to first value the pension. If you have a pension that that's out there, that's up yourself and you get the plan statement, they, they usually send an annual report, right? And what they'll do is they'll, on the front page, they'll say, you know, your plan is worth$200,000, but that's not necessarily accurate. That is not the number that you need to understand. What we need to really understand is like how much mu what is the, what is the current value of the future cash flow that you're going to receive 5, 10, 20 years into the future? So we done, we do pension evaluations where we'll look at the client's, uh, date of birth. Dates of employment, the separation date, the marriage date, the, the, the, um, their a like all the stuff. Discount rates. Interest rates. I mean, there's a whole bunch of stuff that, cost of living adjustments. There's a whole bunch of stuff that goes into it and we. Put it all together and we get a number and nine times outta 10, it is significantly different than the number on the front of the statement. So that's where there's significant differences in that between the traditional 401k, 4 0 1 Ks and the 4 0 3 Bs, right? Because you can go to your 401k today and say, okay, well it's worth$200,000 because I have these investments. And that's it. It's, it's cut and dried pension's. Very, very different. Not to mention the rules with how you can separate those plans are different sometimes. They don't allow you to separate the plan and one person gets a stream of income and the other person gets a stream of income. Sometimes they force the person who's receiving that plan, the portion of that plan to just get a lump sum and move on with their life.'cause they don't wanna manage that plan any longer. You also have two people that unless they're born on the same exact day. Uh, they're two, usually two different ages and two different sects, right? So two different genders. So there's different actuarial tables that are used to calculate how long that person's going to live. So that changes the va, the, the payout structure and so on. Beneficiary designations, like you name it, there's a ton to it. And then if you're looking at some of these other plans, they also layer in medical benefits. You know, maybe if I'm working for the state of Alaska, I get, um,$270 a month or something like that, that's given to me. As a benefit to cover my medical expenses at Medicare age, there's value in that benefit too that we have to factor in. So it's like you, you get into it and you're like, wow, there's actually like a lot to it. It's not just what you see on the surface. There's so many different components of it.

Stoy Hall 27:05

Another great reason to hire your team, right? Like the nuances and the, and the crazy things that go into it, I think make divorces more expensive than people think. And I don't mean expensive in terms of cost. To get it done. Mm-hmm. But the cost of what you didn't know you. Had the rights and values to get right. Like just in that example, that pension. Yeah. The statement says it's valued at 200,000, but if you calculate all those things in, it might be another 200,000, 400,000, 500,000 because of the value of the future, value of those cash flows. Like it, it's a massive number and, and we just don't want people to miss out on things that are one, rightfully theirs or at least a negotiation tool of what they, they want to get from, from what's going on.

Jamie Lima 27:49

Exactly.

Secure Split: Jamie's New Software Built for Divorce Professionals

Stoy Hall 27:49

Alright, so I think we've hit a lot of. Things that a lot of people have questions on. As we get into 2026 and we see these changes and we have filings and things are going on, what is it that you and your team are trying to achieve for, for this industry, for this side of the industry? What are you trying to achieve from a business perspective for everyone out there?

Jamie Lima 28:14

Well, um, thank you for asking. We, we actually built. And this is a 15 month, almost 16 month long project at this, at this stage. But we've been building software over, not necessarily, I wouldn't say quietly, but we've been doing it behind the scenes with a lot of the other work that we're doing for certified divorce financial analysts like myself, family law attorneys. Mediators, forensic accountants, all the people that handle the financial aspects of divorce. So as you know, like you in our world, in our traditional retirement planning, investment management type of roles, we use tools like E-Money and Right Capital and Money Guide Pro. Those are usually the, those are like the top three that are out there where we can run plan projections and we can have clients link their accounts so we can get UpToDate real time information on their accounts and help them put a retirement plan in place. Well, we've built the same thing for divorce professionals called Secure Split. Um, that it has actually just launched last Monday, which I'm super proud of. We launched, did a soft launch here in the state of California last Monday. Um, and we announced that the announced this at our, our big annual conference last week, which was well received. So I'm super pumped about it. Um, we've got about 300 on the wait list right now, so we're going to, uh, be rolling that out slowly to make sure it goes all according to plan over the course of the next couple of months, and then by the summer. We're gonna have nationwide coverage. We should be in 43 states by June. So allow to allow divorce professionals to go in and it, and think of this as end-to-end case management, right? So not just the financial piece. You can manage all of your cases, you can manage your firm, and you can manage your firm KPIs. So you can look at, if you have five advisors on your team, or five attorneys on your team, you can see how many cases they have open, how many cases they've just closed, what their billing looks, their, their hourly. KPIs, uh, we're gonna be able to do time tracking and billing and secure messaging. We have, we're gonna have a plaid integration here very soon where you can, clients are gonna be able to link their accounts so we can get real time UpToDate updates on their account balances and such. So when we start doing the tax, ma, you know, we, because there's a tax component to this, right? So we can be, show people on a pre-tax basis and an after-tax basis how much their accounts are worth, and we could do that in real time. Um, and then we can also export all this information onto the court ready reports. So there's no more manual entry, there's no more taking information from a spreadsheet and putting it on a report. It's with one click. All the data comes in, it's validated, and we can send it out to the courts from there. And then. More functionality, more capabilities and everything else, uh, are gonna be coming down the line. But I'm super pumped about it, man. We're still very much in the first inning, but the exper, the experience so far are people that are in, are beta testers that have been using it for about six months now. Have been, has been wild. So I'm looking forward to seeing where this, this whole thing comes. So thanks for giving a chance to talk about'em. So I'm super pumped about it.

The One Thing You Should Do If You or Someone You Know Is Going Through a Divorce

Stoy Hall 31:06

Yeah. And I am too. Obviously that's not exactly our entire role, but at No BS Wealth, we want to highlight that that's. To me that that can change the industry. It can change efficiency. It will allow hopefully better results for the end client, right. At the end of the day, yeah, that's what it's built for and that's what it's for, but it allows us professionals to do so. So I love it on kudos to you to taking that undertaking, because obviously off air we talk about this and. I don't think I have, I don't think I could do that, but I love that you did. So, hey everyone, we will be, you know, publicizing that more. We'll have it in our newsletter. We're gonna launch it when he, when they go full. But I wanted to make sure that everyone gotta talk about it now. On today's episode. So Jamie, I appreciate everything you do. Everyone. If you do have someone who's going through a divorce or thinking about a divorce or you are going through it, please reach out. Um, I can connect you to Jamie or go directly to him. Obviously, all his contact info will be in the video, um, as well. But please, please do so. We truly want what's best for you and your situation, and we wanna make it efficient and easy. Not what you've heard of the horror stories. Okay? So please come to us with that. So without further do Jamie, appreciate everything that you do. Keep doing it. Please

Jamie Lima 32:13

appreciate you, brother. Thank you.

NoBS Wealth 32:30

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