Days 1–30: gather and stabilize
The first month is documentation and stability. Collect tax returns, pay records, and statements for every account and debt. Note the mortgage payoff, property taxes and insurance. Establish your own email address and, where appropriate, individual bank and credit accounts.
This is also the month to pull your credit reports — not to make changes yet, but so you know exactly which accounts are joint and what your starting position is.
- Two to three years of tax returns and current income documentation
- Statements for every bank, brokerage, retirement and debt account
- Mortgage payoff, tax and insurance figures for the home
- Your own credit reports from all three bureaus
Days 30–60: get informed before deciding
The second month is for consultations rather than commitments. A conversation with a family law attorney about how your state treats property, a mortgage qualification analysis based on realistic post-divorce income, and a market analysis on the home together produce the numbers every later negotiation depends on.
Notice the sequence: information before positions. People who take a firm position on the house in week two often spend months defending a plan that the numbers never supported.
Days 60–90: choose the process and the plan
With documentation and analysis in hand, the third month is where the process choice becomes clear — mediation, collaborative or litigation — and where a realistic housing plan takes shape. This is also when a one-household budget becomes genuinely useful, because you now know what the actual options are.
What to deliberately postpone
Not everything belongs in the first ninety days. Liquidating investments, making large purchases, changing beneficiaries where a court order restricts it, and moving out permanently can all have legal or financial consequences that are hard to reverse. Ask before you act on any of them.