If you own a business, or your spouse does, or you built one together, divorce just got more complicated. You may be wondering, how will divorce impact the business? I’m so glad I have returning guest Jennifer Lee to answer this and other important questions. 

In this episode, we get into what happens to the business you built together, what happens when there’s been financial infidelity and the numbers don’t add up or what to do when your spouse suddenly claims the business is tanking right as divorce hits the table. 

Whether you’re co-owners trying to figure out what comes next, or you’re staring down a spouse who suddenly can’t account for where the money went, this conversation will help you understand what you have, what you’re owed, and how to make sure you don’t walk away with less than you deserve. 

What you’ll hear about in this episode:

• Running the business together and getting divorced: whether you can actually keep it going, and what you need to get in writing when you do (2:36)
• When there’s financial infidelity, the divorce is not amicable and what it takes to get to the real value of a business that’s caught in the middle (6:04)
• Some considerations for business asset division during divorce (13:10)
• What to do when divorce is on the table and all of a sudden “the business isn’t worth anything!” (17:23)
• How to handle avoidance and secrecy around financial disclosures (23:06)
• How Jennifer works with clients in the middle of a divorce, from financial triage to making sure you are walking away with what you are owed (25:12)
  

✨ If you’d like to watch the video version of this episode, you can find it here.

Learn more about Jennifer Lee:

Originally from Maryland, Jennifer brought her over 27 years (44 years if you count going into the office with her father as a child) of expertise in the financial services industry to Florida. Jennifer has found that a relationship with an advisor is most critical at the intersections in life where emotions collide with financial events. She enjoys facilitating her clients through challenges as they experience life’s upsets such as divorce, the loss of a spouse, or business to retirement transition. Whether you are experiencing divorce, a business client expanding or selling your operation, or a couple wanting to make sure they have provided for their family, Modern-Wealth may be a good fit. Jennifer provides a fresh perspective to the financial planning process by digging deep to understand what drives her clients. At Modern-Wealth, they build long-lasting relationships. As part of their process, they encourage clients to communicate their values to the most important people in their lives by writing a family love letter. This led her to write “Squeeze the Juice: Live With Purpose-Then Leave a Legacy. 

Resources & Links:

Kate Anthony’s Complete Parenting Plan
Focused Strategy Sessions with Kate
The Divorce Survival Guide Resource Bundle
Phoenix Rising: A Divorce Empowerment Collective
Kate on Instagram
Kate on Facebook
Kate’s Substack Newsletter: Divorce Coaching Dispatch
The Divorce Survival Guide Podcast Episodes are also available YouTube!
Seven Step Mindset Reset for Divorce 

Connect with Jennifer Lee:

Jennifer’s website
Jennifer on Facebook
Jennifer on Instagram
Jennifer on LinkedIn

Show Transcript:

Kate Anthony: [00:00:00] Hey, everyone. Welcome back. I am here with my favorite divorce-focused financial advisor, and yours, Jennifer Lee. She is the founder of Modern Wealth, a Sarasota-based financial firm with a focus on helping individuals experiencing transitions such as divorce, like yourself. Jennifer’s been on the show a bunch of times.

Today, we’re gonna talk about something a little bit different, and a question that I get all the time, which is how does divorce impact your business? If you own your own business, if your spouse owns their own business, if you co-own a business, oh my God, what are you supposed to do, and what are the impacts?

So Jennifer, welcome back to the show. 

Jennifer Lee: Absolutely. Thanks for having me. I always love to be on your show. Divorce and owning a business, two complexities in and of themselves [00:01:00] alone are complex. So where do you wanna start? You wanna start with- 

Kate Anthony: Yeah … 

Jennifer Lee: you’re both in the business, or one of you has a business?

Kate Anthony: Let’s start with we both ha- we run it together. Now what? 

Jennifer Lee: I guess we start with how amicable is the divorce? Is it- … I love you but I don’t wanna be married to you. I respect you, but I don’t want to be married to you, but we can still work together, or is it contentious and I don’t like you and I don’t wanna be anywhere near you?

So- 

Kate Anthony: And I don’t trust you … 

Jennifer Lee: and I don’t trust you. That’s- 

Kate Anthony: I don’t trust you financially, right? Yeah. So that is the- that is a very important distinction. Let’s start with the former, ’cause that’s a little easier, nicer, right? So yeah, you guys are amicable. You guys, like ev- everything else is on the up and up.

You trust each other financially. The business is good, but now we’re dividing things. Are we dividing this business, too? 

Jennifer Lee: So if you’re 50/50 owners or 51/49 owners, you can, [00:02:00] and you can work together or you plan to work together for the next five, 10 years, whatever it is because the business is thriving and- you do well in business together. You can keep it. There’s no reason not to. You don’t have to. There’s no criteria that says you have to disrupt that. I think that you have to be very clear on the parameters around how you’re operating that business. What are the income levels that each of you are gonna take?

What is the profit distributions? What are the roles in each of the person’s position inside the business, right? What are the roles and responsibilities? You should probably have had all that stuff just because you’re in business together, right? An operating agreement, 

Kate Anthony: right? Yes. 

Jennifer Lee: But not everybody does that.

But 

Kate Anthony: even- Not everybody does. This feels like there’s an intentionality here that sort of says, “This is the way we have been running the business. This is the change that we’re going [00:03:00] through. Th- what do we want to import from the way that we’ve been doing things into this new paradigm?

What have we been doing great?” “What have we been maybe a little slippery on that probably we can’t afford to continue to be slippery on?” Intentionally design it. How do we want this to go? What do we want it to look like? 

Jennifer Lee: And the truth of it is, you probably should be doing that anyway if your marriage is solid, right?

You should have that plan in your business anyway. 

Kate Anthony: And in your marriage. 

Jennifer Lee: And in your marriage, right? Lots of business owners don’t have that depth of operating agreement as tight as they should, and then when you enter divorce, it gets more c- complicated. And now, you probably wanna also be more intentional about when are we exiting the business?

What happens if I don’t wanna be in the business anymore? What happens if somebody dies? What happens… Are we selling it in five years? [00:04:00] Are we selling it in 10 years? Are the kids gonna inherit it? There’s a lot of different components that, already as business owners you should be planning and considering, but now that divorce is on the table it’s pretty important that you bring those things out and evaluate them.

Kate Anthony: Okay. So that’s like a, that’s like the easy one, right? Yeah. So what happens when there’s been financial infidelity? There has been a mismanagement of the business, or… part of the divorce is about the fact that we cannot- 

Jennifer Lee: Continue … 

Kate Anthony: cooperate In any way, shape, or form, business or personal. What happens to the business then?

Jennifer Lee: Again, it goes back to what is the current ownership of it? Is it 50/50? Or is- … or is one party really running it, and the other is working part-time in it or supporting it? What’s the depth of the financial infidelity? So you may need to involve a forensic accountant to- kinda trail and really understand what the [00:06:00] value of the business, what the value of the distributions from the business for the family household or for that individual are, so you really have a serious and real value, tangible value to- … 

Jennifer Lee: deal with, right? ‘Cause you can… Your tax reporting, what you pay on your taxes versus what your business generates in terms of revenue are two different things.

Not that you’re cheating, but that you’re tax deducting everything that you possibly can. That’s what we do. That’s what your tax accountant is supposed to do. They’re supposed to make sure you get every available and legal tax deduction strategy for your benefit. At the same time, if I’m gonna buy your business, I wanna know what kind of benefit were you getting out of the business, not just, what kind of revenue, what kind of payroll were you on, what kind of distributions.

Did you have a car? Do you put your gas? Do you put other things on the business? That’s your… That’s really the number that I wanna know, and that’s a [00:07:00] multiple that I would use to value your business. So you’ll wanna get to that too. 

Kate Anthony: I’m assuming a business is similar to a home, which is that if w- you gotta figure out who’s keeping it.

Jennifer Lee: Yep. 

Kate Anthony: If you cannot continue to run it together, then you are deciding who is gonna keep it, and one person has to buy the other person out- 

Jennifer Lee: Yep … 

Kate Anthony: based on the current value. So you have to have it appraised in some way or valued in some way. Is a business basically just, it’s the same as all the other stuff, right?

It’s an 

Jennifer Lee: asset. 

Kate Anthony: It’s an asset. It’s an 

Jennifer Lee: asset. 

Kate Anthony: Or not, right? And so- 

Jennifer Lee: Or a liability. 

Kate Anthony: If I’m gonna keep the business, you may have to give me money to, to take it off your hands. If it’s if it’s in the hole 

Jennifer Lee: let’s hope that if it’s in the hole, we just let you have it. But we’ve verified first that- 

Kate Anthony: Yeah

Jennifer Lee: You’re not really getting more money out of it that we don’t know about. So that’s where you may need a, if, particularly if there’s financial infidelity, you wanna have a [00:08:00] really strong understanding of cash flows and where the money is going inside of that business. 

Kate Anthony: And so these are all the financial disclosures that would have to be done inside of the divorce, right?

And inside of the valuation of the business- … in getting that assessed. I’m thinking of, I’m thinking of a client who has been running a business with her spouse for many years, and he has essentially driven it into the ground. It was very successful. It was, they’re pillars of the community, very central to the community.

He has mismanaged it, not just the finances, but actually the staff. Morale is really low. People are scared of him. Like, all the reasons that she’s divorcing him are the reasons, are ways that he has impacted the business as well. I feel like she’s considering continuing to run the business with him, or they’re- Oof

I I think from an HR perspective, she has to get him out, but also it’s in such a mess right now, right? How do you determine “Okay, I’m gonna keep this thing that I’ve been [00:09:00] running with somebody else. I don’t do what he does.” Does he have to… D- does she now have to hire someone to do what he does, and then it costs her more money, and then they’re…

what… it’s such a mess. It’s so complicated. 

Jennifer Lee: It i- it is. It sounds like the perfect storm. I- … just from the little bit that you’re telling me, I would I would be inclined to value the business from where it is now in the downturn, right? So it’s not worth as much because he’s disrupted it, and that can be a factor in valuing it at a lower level because he has, in fact, impacted, negatively impacted the business.

I would then, I would boot him out of the business and not have him involved because of that. He has a particular set of skills the stuff that he was doing that worked, right? Then you’re gonna have to hire out for that if you don’t have that particular skill set- … yourself. We, in life and business, we divide and conquer, so it might not be your natural space.

You may need to hire for that. But you don’t necessarily have to bring on a partner. You bring on somebody who you pay to do that piece. 

Kate Anthony: Right

Jennifer Lee: and now you’re- … in control of that entity, and hopefully you’re able to grow it [00:11:00] back to where it was or beyond without that gorilla on your back that was, messing up things.

Kate Anthony: Not just logistically messing things up, but it’s the morale and the energy and the toxicity that, that they infuse, and you’re not… this isn’t- Something that maybe you can recoup, right? You can’t necessarily put a dollar, a value on that. You probably, maybe you can, right?

But- 

Jennifer Lee: do you think that the husband recognizes the damage that he’s done? Or not really. Narcissists- Of 

Kate Anthony: course not … 

Jennifer Lee: we get off a narcissist, right? Of course not. Okay 

Kate Anthony: Of course not … 

Jennifer Lee: then you’d have to make a case for what the value of the business is remaining. I think just like when you’re in a toxic relationship and that person is no longer in your personal space, and you grieve and you breathe then- like it’s fresh air, right? That’s right. I think that culture could, with that person exiting, will feel that fresh energy and that healthier [00:12:00] energy, hopefully, of the remaining partner. So I don’t know the valuation of the business or whether she has other assets to trade with him to get him out, but it does sound like if she has controlling interest, she may need to fire him.

Kate Anthony: Yeah. That I don’t know. I don’t know what they’re… Okay, so we just did it’s amicable, and we did it’s really, it’s not. Are there any other considerations for how things are divided that we should be thinking of? 

Jennifer Lee: Let’s take a situation where you have a marriage and one person owns the business.

Kate Anthony: Ah, yes. 

Jennifer Lee: And you’ve been married for 30 years. And they grew the business from nothing. Lots of people, whoever it is, the husband or the wife, who is the non-business owner, will say he built it,” or, “She built it. It’s not really mine.” I don’t agree with that, 

Kate Anthony: neither does the law. 

Jennifer Lee: Yeah. I, so you are entitled to half of that. You’re married 30 years, more than likely you’re entitled to half of that. And you’re entitled to some compensation for whether it’s a [00:13:00] stream of income from that business moving forward, whether it’s a buyout and you have assets, that you take in terms of retirement assets or equity in the house, whatever it is, other investment assets.

Kate Anthony: Yeah. 

Jennifer Lee: You’re just dividing those different categories and choosing what’s gonna make the most sense for you and whoever’s left in your family, your kids or just yourself. 

Kate Anthony: Besides the value of the business, right? So you’re determined to ha- You are entitled to half of the value of the business at the date of separation- Yeah

In most states. That would be- … how you would do it. And of course, that value is rarely available in cash inside the business, right? So it might be a retirement account, it might be taken out of the house or whatever, wherever else you’re gonna find that money. What is the, you said something about a sort of payroll moving forward, income moving forward.

H- how is that determined, and what would that be for? Is that’s because it grows based on the investment that [00:14:00] was made during the marriage? 

Jennifer Lee: I guess I kinda look at it like it’s a matter of what are the total resources, right? And the business certainly is one of them, and the business is generating cash flow that’s going to the household and to the marital assets and accumulating that, and the family’s living on that.

If the value of the business and what it can generate is X, then when you’re dividing assets, you’re looking at what is that value of that business and what piece of it. So let’s say there’s equity in the business of 500,000 and you’re gonna keep the business, so you owe me 250,000.

But you don’t have the cash. Maybe you’re gonna pay me out over that- … over the next couple years through cash flow. I see. Or you’re, we’re gonna swap assets. You’re gonna take another asset from something else. So there, there’s more flexibility certainly if the money is, if the business is producing revenue.

Kate Anthony: Okay, great. And I know a lot of people who are like, a lot of my clients are like, “He’s keeping the business and I’m keeping my retirement.” Yeah. “We’ve just decided we’ve [00:16:00] run the numbers loosely enough. It’s…” That seems simple enough.

Where do you see it getting kinda tripped up? 

Jennifer Lee: When there’s not transparency, when you’re trying- … to, be sketchy about how your finances look in the business- … where you’re not being transparent about where there’s infidelity, financial infidelity. And when there’s a non-moneyed party.

So if one of the people is really, “Hey, he handles the finances and owns the business, I just, I handle the life and everything else with the kids, and we divide and conquer,” that’s great, but make sure that you get, you have advocates that are evaluating those things for you to make sure that you’re getting your fair share.

Nothing makes me more crazy than leaving money on the table. 

Kate Anthony: Okay, there’s something that I see all the time. Okay, all the time. I’m sure you do, too. Which is [00:17:00] spouse owns a business that has, been successful. There’s been cash flow. There’s… so they’re, they have, drawn their salary from it, every- supported the family or just contributed, right?

Fine. Sure. As soon as they get divorced, the business is tanking. It… I have… There’s no money. It’s not worth anything. 

Jennifer Lee: Actually, before they get divorced. 

Kate Anthony: Some- w- yeah, sometimes, I don’t know, right? But, like- As soon as that’s… or as soon as there’s separation, right? Yeah. Oh, no.

It’s, it, the business isn’t worth anything. W- what do you… do you see this all the time too? 

Jennifer Lee: I do. It’s, and it’s, it- it’s a tough one because it could be that there’s an economic shift, and that is in fact true. It could be that it’s a sketchy behavior to try to protect yourself and your assets.

I think that’s where you do need to incorporate a forensic accountant, because there may actually be [00:18:00] money there or resources. Although people also do things like, “Oh, I’m not working as many hours now because I’m getting a divorce,” because they’re trying to bring down the numbers- Sure … so it doesn’t look as favorable so they don’t have to pay as much alimony.

Unfortunately, that, that happens. 

Kate Anthony: And do we consider that legal? Is that… I guess it’s your own business. You can do, you can… I mean- Yeah. It’s unethical … it’s sketchy. It’s unethical and it’s sketchy, right? Is it 

Jennifer Lee: legal? I, it’s probably legal. 

Kate Anthony: It’s very convenient, I think is the… right? And I guess, when clients’ spouses say to them “My business is failing,” “It’s just, it’s going under, it’s so bad,” when it has been successful, my response is, “Okay, prove it.

Okay, if that’s the case I got it. But show me.” 

Jennifer Lee: Oh, yeah. You have to, it has to be demonstrated. You have to see that because of tariffs the shipment- Sure … that they were, happening in their business [00:19:00] is down 25%. Okay, that’s understandable if you can d- if you can say there’s a, there’s an economic explanation for a shift in my particular style of business.

But if you’re an attorney and all of a sudden you’re just meeting with people less frequently because either you’re depressed and you’re sucking your thumb, or you’re stru- structuring this so that you- … you are making less money. 

Kate Anthony: Yes, let’s say it is legit. Tariffs. Yeah. Absolutely legitimate concern these days, right?

Yeah. But also hopefully not a permanent one. God help us. Is there a way to work that so that if it does pick back up… or is it like we were in a recession. The value of the your mortgage is y- underwater-” Yeah … “and your house is underwater, and that’s just the way it is. Bummer for you”?

Jennifer Lee: I think if you’re selling it, certainly you’re d- it is what it is. Sure. If you are calculating [00:20:00] alimony off of it, you can revisit that, and you could also go back a few years to do an average. If you’re valuing your proportional piece of the business, that’s gonna be hard, ’cause it is what it is at the time.

So you might be better off to position it based on, hey, based on our last 10 years of marriage, this is the income that, X has been able to generate on an annualized basis. This is a blip. This is what we need in terms of alimony and child support and such. 

Kate Anthony: Yeah. So base it on the income rather over time versus the value.

Jennifer Lee: Yeah. 

Kate Anthony: That might be a better a better solution. Jennifer, what are some other considerations for if you own a business, if your spouse owns a business, if you co-own a business, are there other considerations for dividing and conquering? Anything like, any really creative solutions you’ve seen?

Jennifer Lee: If you are creative and open-minded, you can split things many different ways. [00:23:00] Maybe there is a segment of the business that is your natural space, and you can break it apart, right? Into dif- two different pieces. And split it up and continue operating it.

Maybe you decide that it’s time to hang it up, and we need to look at finding a buyer so we can get the best number for it, and that’s a timeframe that you really devote to, okay, how do we tighten up the business and the numbers so that we can get the best opportunity to exit? And then we’re splitting that in divorce.

Again it really goes back to that relationship and what is it and what can we work with, and then we’re navigating within that space. You know with your clients, if you have an irrational person, you’re gonna have an irrational divorce. And if you have somebody who says, “Look, I’m just not in love with you anymore, but I’d, the s- the parent to our children, then and we’re gonna have to live to see each other and be in each other’s lives for the next 30 years, so let’s do this in a respectful way,” that’s a whole different [00:24:00] story.

Yeah. 

Kate Anthony: Yep. 

Jennifer Lee: We hope 

Kate Anthony: for that. Absolutely. We do hope for that. We do. We don’t 

Jennifer Lee: get it often, but we hope for it. Oh, God. 

Kate Anthony: I know. I know. While I have you, when you’re dealing with financial disclosures with- … in a divorce, and you are noticing some avoidance. Are there financial ways or anything that you can do or say to your spouse to your, or that your attorney might say, or that you might say to the other party that is compelling them, that it might be more compelling than, “You need to do this ’cause it’s the law,” or- right? Like, how do you get someone who is Disinclined, perhaps, to share information or just to even move the process forward. They’re not even hiding anything. 

Jennifer Lee: It’s tough because those people are either stuck emotionally, psychologically, or where they can’t function and get it done.

Or they’re trying to delay [00:26:00] it because they’re trying to control the environment. So if it’s, i- really in either situation, but definitely in the latter, you probably need your attorney. You need your attorney to compel the court to have them provide the documents. 

Kate Anthony: Yeah. So trying to avoid that, right?

We try to avoid that at all costs, but at the end of the day that’s the deal, right? 

Jennifer Lee: That’s, we’re supposed to be disclosing things. Usually one party is more, more open to do it. In an ideal world, before you’re entering the divorce realm, you have an idea of what you guys have, right?

You have an idea of y- and you can get copies of your own tax returns from the IRS. Yeah. So you have an idea of what the household revenues are. You, hopefully you have an idea of where the IRAs and personal assets are. The challenge these days is that all of those things are electronic.

And so you may not have the passwords to all those things. So it is- That’s 

Kate Anthony: right … it is. And there might be a two-factor ID on- Oh, yeah … top of that where you’re, like, trying not to let the cat [00:27:00] out of the bag, but- 

Jennifer Lee: Yeah … 

Kate Anthony: all of a sudden the cat’s out of the bag. When people come to work with you, because- we have just FYI, everybody, Jennifer and I work together. My private clients all get a session with Jennifer because this is an area that I am not remotely, even personally good at let alone an expert in. 

Jennifer Lee: You don’t give yourself enough credit. 

Kate Anthony: No. So what does it, what does that look like? What does working with you look like?

Jennifer Lee: Th- thank you for asking that question. It’s a great question. I, when I started working in the divorce world, I’ve been in, in a financial advisor for on- going on 30 years. So as an advisor, we have a process. We go through this plan, and we really analyze what does the future look like and all these different things, and we need all this data.

When I’m working with somebody who’s in the middle, in the trenches of a divorce, they don’t have the capacity or the bandwidth to do [00:28:00] all this future stuff. And it really, that’s not what you need right now. So- … think of it like a divorce, you’re coming into the ER and you don’t need me to, ask you your family history and the whole thing.

You need me to deal with the- And yet they do … bleeding, the bleeding that’s happening. And yet they do. But 

Kate Anthony: you need me to- yeah … 

Jennifer Lee: stop the bleeding, and then ask the questions, right? So it’s a combination. I call it financial triage. So- … first we’re gonna just really assess what’s happening.

What do you have? What are we… What are the resources you have? What’s going on in the divorce? What does your attorney say? What is your… do you have a support system like a coach? All of these pieces, and then look at a strategy, and then help them decide what assets do they want. Really understand, yes, I’m emotionally attached to the house because of the kids, and they’re young, but if I keep the house, then I have no money, no cash, and- no ability to do things. I always remember this one client she [00:29:00] was just adamant about having the house, keeping it for the kids. And so s- she kept the house, he kept other assets, and he had an apartment. And almost every weekend, he could take the t- kids skiing. She had no extra money, so the kids didn’t wanna stay home.

They wanted to go skiing with Dad. So it’s a hard decision to make, but you really have to… and my job isn’t to tell you which one’s right or wrong, right? It’s to tell you and help you understand the consequences of the choice you’re gonna make. 

Kate Anthony: Sure. Run all the numbers. Run both scenarios, right?

Jennifer Lee: Yeah. What does it look like if this happens? What does it look like if you go this way? Where’s the balance? Do you need to go back to school? Do you need to get a part-time job? What is, what do things look like? 

Kate Anthony: And one of the things I know that I think we’ve talked about this before, but one of the things that you’re assessing too is there’s not, just because there’s a cash value now doesn’t mean it’s, [00:30:00] has the same value over time.

Breaking into a retirement f- fund to, if it’s $250,000 off of this and you’re gonna break your, a retirement fund, or give them $250,000, there’s a tax implication. There’s- Sure … money over, it’s amortized over a lifetime or whatever, right? How- 

Jennifer Lee: Yes … 

Kate Anthony: are those calculations that you make?

Jennifer Lee: There might be personal assets or illiquid assets like the equity in your home versus an IRA that if you tap into has tax consequences and/or tax benefits, right? So you want to really understand all the different parts and make sure that net after- After tax, after, is that everything is equitable, that you’re getting your equitable share.

So there might be a variation between, if you’re keeping all the IRAs and you’re keeping the personal money. Because, I had a [00:32:00] client not that long ago who, he’s still working and he’s high- high income earner, and she’s gonna get alimony and has no income because she’s done work- she’s retired.

So he had an inherited IRA. He had to take money out every year. He gave that to her in the divorce, right? It’s a, to, to his tax advantage and to hers. I see. Because her tax bracket is lower. So we calculate those things. Oh, 

Kate Anthony: that’s… Yeah. 

Jennifer Lee: We’re just being strategic about it, right?

Why waste money on tax if you can, facilitate it more favorably? 

Kate Anthony: Yes. These are things, it’s like sometimes I’ll, we’ll have clients who just like just put everything in a spreadsheet, like these are all the numbers, but- 

Jennifer Lee: Yeah … 

Kate Anthony: those are not necessarily the numbers. 

Jennifer Lee: It’s a good starting point, and that’s what we do.

We- we try to… Yes, we’re gonna, we’re gonna assess what, who has what, right? What’s in his name, what’s in her name what’s marital, what’s non-marital assets. [00:33:00] Hopefully you kept inheritances completely separate. 

Kate Anthony: And in some states, like Connecticut, inheritance is not off the table right?

It’s, it, like there are, whoo, there’s a lot of shit going on. Can be a nightmare. I have a… Oh, I have clients in Connecticut who are, a few of them, where they’re having to give up other things just to try to protect their inheritance, ’cause it, in Connecticut, it’s considered marital. Not off 

Jennifer Lee: the- 

Kate Anthony: Not off the table, which is shitty.

Jennifer Lee: Yeah. Yeah. Depends on what side you’re on. 

Kate Anthony: That’s true. 

Jennifer Lee: But generally speaking, I agree. It is shitty. Because the whole idea, to me as a financial person, the whole idea about inheritance is that you want to keep it in the family line. Unfortunately, we’re in this business, in this industry. We know that divorce happens often.

If it came from your parents or your grandparents, you want to keep it in line so that it would go to your kids- … not necessarily to your [00:34:00] wasband. … So that’s the reason. 

Kate Anthony: And hope- and hopefully your wasband also wants it to go to your- Yes … their children. Hopefully. But- 

Jennifer Lee: Hopefully

Kate Anthony: often not so much. 

Jennifer Lee: Yeah, often it’s a negotiating point, right? 

Kate Anthony: Yeah. Yeah. What other considera- any other considerations that we haven’t touched on in terms of dividing business? 

Jennifer Lee: There are some situations where you could, could say, you could say, “I’m still gonna own a piece of the business, but he or she is gonna operate it.”

Yeah. “And I end up getting a profit-sharing component of it.” I don’t really love that because you’re not in control, and your asset is tied up in that business and dependent on that person. 

Kate Anthony: Yeah, that’s like co-owning a house. You- Yeah … you’re in ongoing business with this person- Yes

that maybe you don’t want to be. 

Jennifer Lee: Yeah. So whenever possible, in most situations, you wanna try to, move on from that. 

Kate Anthony: Yeah. Yeah. 

Jennifer Lee: Sometimes it’s unavoidable. 

Kate Anthony: Yeah, and sometimes taking the hit is worth the freedom, I mean- Yeah … [00:35:00] we don’t want people taking a massive hit, but sometimes if you’re weighing something financial and something emotional, like they don’t necessarily, financial does not necessarily outweigh the emotional and psychological separation.

Jennifer Lee: Absolutely. We see it all the time with people who say, “Oh, I wanna pay off my mortgage.” And I say you really, your interest rate is low. It doesn’t, you don’t need to do that.” And they say, “I’ll sleep better at night.” So the little incremental difference that you would’ve made in your investments is definitely worth the sleep at night factor.

So that goes exactly the same as what you’re saying. The sleep at night factor the psychological factor may be more important than 50, 100 grand, whatever it is. 

Kate Anthony: Exactly. Exactly. 

Jennifer Lee: Hopefully not a million. Let’s not do that. 

Kate Anthony: Let’s not do that. Yeah. Jennifer, thank you so much for coming back on.

It’s always such a pleasure to talk to you. Where can everybody find you? 

Jennifer Lee: So I always like to say, if we in- [00:36:00] intrigued you and left you hanging with something that we didn’t answer, you can reach out to me on my Calendly. I’m happy to take a squeeze of juice call and answer your question. It’s Jennifer Modern Wealth is my Calendly, and my website is modern-wealth.com.

Kate Anthony: Like I said, if you sign up for private coaching with me, you get a free call with Jennifer, but you can also pay for her time separate from me. 

Jennifer Lee: Best to get all of your resources lined up, right? 

Kate Anthony: 100%. Listen, it’s the team approach that is the most effective as we well know.

Jennifer Lee: For sure. 

Kate Anthony: Thanks so much, Jennifer. 

Jennifer Lee: Thank you, Kate.

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