Your divorce is finally finalized. However, there are still steps you must take to completely separate your life from your ex-spouse’s. One critical step will be to ensure all of your accounts are in order – and that will mean updating all of your information.
4 tips to navigate this process smoothly
Certain accounts, from your bank accounts to your streaming service subscriptions, and even your airline rewards, can be pain points in the process of dividing your assets in divorce. After you have negotiated how you divide them, you may not only have to create new accounts but make necessary changes to existing ones of which you retain ownership. To tackle this task, it will help to:
- Create a checklist of all the accounts, financial or otherwise, that will require updated information. In the digital world we live in, this list can be rather long. Almost everything requires an online account nowadays. Organizing all of these accounts in one place can help you keep track of your progress, and make this task feel far less overwhelming.
- Arrange this list by deadline. Some accounts should be updated as soon as possible, such as your credit card and bank accounts. Once you have completed your checklist of all the accounts, adjust the order by urgency.
- Determine what information needs updating. After a divorce, you may have to change your address – especially the billing address – on various accounts. If you change your name after divorce, you may also have to make sure your accounts reflect that change. You may also have to remove your ex-spouse as a user on certain accounts. Specifically for financial accounts of any kind, you may also wish to change who the beneficiary is, if it was previously your ex-spouse.
- Look into the procedures required to update information. As you create and review your checklist, make note of the processes to revise the accounts. Some may be very simple, such as personally changing your name in the settings of a music streaming account. Others may be more intensive, requiring proof of a name change or additional paperwork. For example, many financial institutions will require an updated government ID to make changes. This means that if you change your name or address, you may have to update your North Carolina driver license in order to change any information on your accounts.
As if working through your divorce was not enough, the to-do list does not end once the divorce is finalized. There is still much to do. Take a deep breath. Getting organized will be key to help you face the changes a divorce brings, both large and small.