Administrative Triage

The day a divorce becomes real, a short list needs attention before the lawyers finish, because some of these steps cannot be undone later:

• Powers of attorney and health directives. If your spouse holds your financial power of attorney or your medical proxy, revoke them in writing and name someone else. Decide now whether you want a soon-to-be-ex deciding whether to keep you on life support (section “Estate planning”).
• Beneficiaries — but mind the timing. Update every designation, but note that in many states the act of filing and serving a divorce petition triggers automatic temporary restraining orders — in California they are printed on the summons — that prohibit changing beneficiaries or moving assets while the case is pending. The window to clean up beneficiary designations is often before you file. Coordinate with counsel.
• Credit. A joint credit card or line of credit makes you liable for the other party’s charges. Close or freeze joint accounts, open individual ones, and pull your credit report. A vindictive spouse with an open joint line is an expensive problem.
• Accounts and access. Separate your banking, change the passwords on individual financial accounts, and redirect direct deposits and statements.
• Health insurance. Divorce is a qualifying event. A spouse covered under the other’s employer plan will lose coverage and needs a COBRA election or a marketplace plan — do not discover that gap during a medical emergency.
• Joint tenancies. Where state law and the court permit, sever joint tenancies. A joint tenancy with right of survivorship means that if you die mid-divorce, your ex inherits the entire asset by operation of law, will or no will.
• Filing status, decided by December 31. Marital status on the last day of the year sets your status for the whole year, so a decree entered on December 30 makes you single for all twelve months. One exception matters and is routinely missed: under IRC §7703(b), “Determination of marital status” a still-married parent who lived apart from their spouse for the entire last six months of the year, maintains the household, and has a qualifying child living with them for more than half the year is treated as unmarried — unlocking head-of-household brackets and the credits that married-filing-separately would have destroyed.
• Who claims the children. The dependency credits follow the custodial parent by default, defined by nights, not by the decree — the IRS does not enforce family-court orders. To move the child tax credit to the non-custodial parent, the custodial parent must sign Form 8332 and the other parent must attach it. Negotiate this explicitly, and note that the release moves the child tax credit but not head-of-household status, the earned income credit, or the dependent care credit, which stay with the custodial parent no matter what the decree says.