I agree on splitting all accounts. It was pretty easy for ex and me because throughout our M we maintained separate bank accounts and CC's anyway. So it was mostly changing names on bills and such.
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The other big thing we have outstanding is our mortgage payment on the house which I am living in. That is currently still being drafted out of our joint accounts. My thinking on that was that she lived in the house from April-July (4 months) and the mortgage was coming out of our joint accounts so it was only fair for me to live in the house for 4 months (Aug-Dec) with the money coming from our joint account. She is now renting an apartment out of her own money. The joint account will clearly be split at a certain percentage between us (maybe 50/50, although 70/30 would be a fairer distribution given how much more I put in) so if I keep drafting the mortgage from there it will be coming out her money as well.
In lieu of that I would suggest just going ahead and closing the joint account and splitting whatever is in it. If you think she owes you for the time she was in the house and you weren't, then bring it up with her and let her know what you think you're owed.
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My thought is to stop that and start drafting from my personal account. The mortgage is in both of our names. I really just want to separate out everything (mortgage, phone, gym) so that we don't have any joint payments any more. Obviously we (or mediators or lawyers) will need to negotiate the split of the accounts and the mortgage when we reach that point, this is just an intermediary step.
Yes. The way this typically works is if you have equity in the home and one of you is keeping it, then as part of the D process you have to hire a 3rd party to evaluate the market value of the home. They will check it out top to bottom and look at comparables in the neighborhood and come up with a number. Assuming assets are divided 50-50 then the party staying in the home will owe the other party 50% of the market value minus principal still owed as part of the D decree. So for example if you owe 100k principal on the loan (interest paid doesn't factor in) and the home is determined to be worth 200k, then you will owe her 200k - 100k / 2 = 50k on the house. There's a certain time window in which that is to be paid. Our house was paid off so I had to take out a mortgage all over again to pay my ex, and there was a separate process to get her name removed from the title.
