Insights into Disputing Colorado Divorce Agreements with Chip Dunn | Episode 175

Ever wonder what it would take to invalidate a divorce agreement in Colorado? This week, we've got our associate attorney Chip Dunn with us, breaking down the complex legalities behind challenging or invalidating a divorce agreement. Chip and Ryan dissect the court review processes to understanding the weight of financial disclosure and tackle how rule 60 and rule 16.2 factor into these scenarios, and how misrepresentation or omission of debt can open the doors to dismantling a separation agreement.

They also highlight how not complying or disclosing necessary documents is a one-way ticket to starting the upsetting process all over again. Chip and Ryan help us navigate these tricky waters, highlighting the importance of having an attorney to ensure all the boxes are checked and documents exchanged.

What is Divorce at Altitude?

Ryan Kalamaya and Amy Goscha provide tips and recommendations on issues related to divorce, separation, and co-parenting in Colorado. Ryan and Amy are the founding partners of an innovative and ambitious law firm, Kalamaya | Goscha, that pushes the boundaries to discover new frontiers in family law, personal injuries, and criminal defense in Colorado.

To subscribe to Divorce at Altitude, click here and select your favorite podcast player. To subscribe to Kalamaya | Goscha's YouTube channel where many of the episodes will be posted as videos, click here. If you have additional questions or would like to speak to one of our attorneys, give us a call at 970-429-5784 or email us at info@kalamaya.law.

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DISCLAIMER: THE COMMENTARY AND OPINIONS ON THIS PODCAST IS FOR ENTERTAINMENT AND INFORMATIONAL PURPOSES AND NOT FOR THE PURPOSE OF PROVIDING LEGAL ADVICE. CONTACT AN ATTORNEY IN YOUR STATE OR AREA TO OBTAIN LEGAL ADVICE ON ANY OF THESE ISSUES.

Transcript

Ryan Kalamaya: 0:03

Hey everyone. I'm Ryan Kalamaya.

Amy Goshca: 0:05

And I'm Amy Goscha.

Ryan Kalamaya: 0:07

Welcome to the Divorce at Altittude, a podcast on Colorado family law.

Amy Goshca: 0:12

Divorce is not easy. It really sucks. Trust me, I know. Besides being an experienced Divorce attorney, I'm also a Divorce client.

Ryan Kalamaya: 0:20

Whether you or someone considering Divorce or a fellow family law attorney, listen in for weekly tips and insight into topics related to Divorce co-parenting. And separation in Colorado. Welcome back to another episode of Divorce at Altitude. This is your co host, Ryan Kalamaya. We're going to be talking this week about invalidating divorce agreements. And some people may call this divorce remorse. Others might say fraud. And we're going to get into the different. methods and vehicles and paths by which, someone can try to say an agreement or even an order by the judge that finalizes a divorce can be, either re examined or set aside. So we're going to be joined by our senior associate Chip Dunn. He's been an associate with our firm and he has dealt with this and we're just going to have, we thought it'd be helpful to have a discussion on the various kinds of ways that these issues come up, but for, listeners that don't know you, who you are, Chip we have a separate episode on your bio if they really want to go deep and listen about Crystal Palace and your love of EDM, but, can you give listeners a little idea of, who you are as a person and your background?

Chip Dunn: 1:33

Yeah, thanks for having me today, Ryan. I'm excited to talk about this topic. Yeah, I'm a Colorado native. I grew up in the Denver metro area. I've been a lawyer for four years now. Practiced in Minnesota, back home in Colorado now for the last year. It's actually my one year anniversary here at this firm. And yeah, I'm ready to talk about invalidating They're probably taking agreements

Ryan Kalamaya: 1:58

today. Right. So, let's say that, just to set the table for listeners that, don't really know what we're talking about. So if Eric and Melanie Wolf are hypothetical divorce clients, if they go to mediation and they're represented, one's represented by me, Eric, I represent Eric and Chip, he's not within our firm cause that couldn't ever happen for a firm to represent two people. But if Chip were with another firm he represents Melanie and we reach an agreement, then Chip, what happens if Melanie comes back to you a year afterwards and says, Chip, I really like you, but this agreement, it just stinks. What are the things that kind of come up and can you walk listeners through the different ways that, you we can set aside an agreement for Melanie.

Chip Dunn: 2:48

Yeah it's an interesting topic, Ryan, and I found that it's been coming up a lot more recently, and I don't really know why that's been the case that I've dealt with it three times in the last year, really, which seems kind of a lot for a family law attorney, your, the question is, if both parties are Being represented by attorneys and there's a mediator and we have a separation agreement after that. It's a tough hill to climb if you're trying to invalidate the agreements. There are different grounds that are required or that are utilized for invalidating agreements, such as, Lack of financial disclosure, was it signed under duress or coercion? Is it, unconscionability? Are there invalid terms? But that's going to be difficult if there are lawyers in the room and, they're signing off on that as well., a lot of our, a lot of the separation agreements are, Memorandum of Understandings, MOUs, A lot of times they'll say approved as deformed because the attorneys were basically saying this is a good agreement. So, there's my first question to Melanie would be what's wrong with it? And I want to find out what, what has changed in a year that she would want to set aside the agreements. That's where I would

Ryan Kalamaya: 4:10

start. Yeah, we'll come back in more detail for listeners that are particularly curious about the financial disclosure component. We're going to come back to that, but one thing that we see and we see it and Amy and I've talked a fair amount about this on the episodes on premarital agreements is this coercion. And I think if you have two attorneys, the hypothetical I went through is not necessarily the best one. We can, we get calls from people who say, Eric and Melanie they did their agreement on their own. And if Eric, browbeat Melanie, and they just don't get a lawyer that is going to be a different circumstance than two people that voluntarily go to mediation with attorneys, because. If they went to mediation, there's a mediator. The mediator is not as a professional is going to, they're not going to allow someone to sign if they feel like they've been coerced and same thing with you, Chip, if you're representing Melanie, you're not going to let her sign an agreement under. Duress and, but if Melanie feels, if she felt pressured, you, of course, wouldn't have done that. But if she felt pressure that's maybe a little bit different. But can you, I think it's really, you said it's a tough road to hoe. I completely agree. I think it's really. Hard to make an argument of coercion, but let's take a step back, walk listeners through the process by which, people without, after they've exchanged financial disclosures, which I'll, another teaser, we'll come back to that. But let's say that Eric and Melanie, they. Agree to the terms, what happens after that with respect to the court and the court's involvement in signing off on an agreement and the standard by which the court employs in reviewing a separation agreement? Yeah,

Chip Dunn: 6:04

so, when you. I'm too in a settlement, which I, I hope it's always the goal when you go to mediation is to get a settlement. And I just want to touch on 1 thing. I always tell my clients never feel like you are not required to sign anything on mediation day. Let's give it the old college. Try. Let's try to do our best. But you don't want them to feel. That they were forced to sign after you come to an agreement, and you signed that MOU that I had referenced earlier, the memorandum of understanding, or you have a separation agreement already, or a parenting plan already typed up, and you just plug it in the numbers and the substance, then you file that with the court on all of our separation agreements. It says, these are enforceable and these are to be a court order. And we'll even file a proposed order and then the courts will review it. They'll review it within the best interest of the children. If there are children involved, they'll re review it under, and then eventually the court, if it's not unconscionable and has two attorneys most of the times the court will. Sign it and make it a

Ryan Kalamaya: 7:09

order of the court. Right. And, I think people need to understand that not unconscionable, it's just like a mouthful and it doesn't make any sense. Or, I mean, it does make sense, but that is the legal term of art. That's why we use it. And the, the law requires. the court to independently review the separation agreement and then and as part of, and to determine whether it's not unconscionable. And in doing that job, the court will look at the sworn financial statements, or at least that's what. That's what the judges usually in the, where the magistrates, they will do. And they'll look at the sworn financial statements and they'll see, okay, Erica, Melanie, yeah, maybe it's, it doesn't have to be 50, 50, but just to make sure is Eric getting. The house, the business, all the bank accounts, the 401k, and Melanie gets zero and there's no maintenance, that's a circumstance where the court's going to say, well, this just does not make any sense. And there are circumstances in which Eric will try to force Melanie or actually forces Melanie or Melanie does it. She's devastated by the divorce. She's emotionally distraught. She signs off, on something. There's an intermarriage of Manzo. There's these, situations where people are duped. And, the court actually requires people to come in if they don't have lawyers to come in and we'll. Ask, Melanie, do you understand what you signed? And I don't understand I don't really get why are you giving away the farm, so to speak? And the reason that the court does that is to ensure that it's, it's a fair deal. It doesn't, again, it doesn't have to be 50 50, but there is the standard by which the court reviews the separation agreement. And I think it's helpful for people to understand that. And then for the parenting, again, the court also has to have an independent review of what's best for what's in the best interest of the children. Now, if two parents say, we agree to this kind of schedule. The court's really, going to defer strongly to what they agree to, because they know their children and they know their circumstances way better than the court does. And so, but it is just an independent kind of examination of what's best, what's in the best interest for the children. But any, Chip, any clarification you want to mention on that topic? No, I think that's,

Chip Dunn: 9:35

I think, the independent review is obviously how the courts do it. The court is guided by, case law. In re Manzo is the big, case for invalidating agreements and why it's important that the court needs to review the agreements, especially if there is a party not represented by counsel just for that fail safe. The court wants to make sure that they're not signing something that's going to come back and be invalidated later. And then, ultimately we're supposed to reflect poorly on the judge who didn't review it. So they want to avoid that as well.

Ryan Kalamaya: 10:07

Yeah. And moving on to, some of the issues that could be on invalid contract, terms or things that will give the court, pause. So one issue is under interim marriage of Paul co ownership after a divorce is against public policy. That said, People do it so they can continue to cohabitate. That's, unusual. It's kind of bears the question of why are you getting a divorce in the first place? But I have seen it and all, especially right now, Chip with when we're recording this insurance, mortgage interest rates are sky high. So a lot of people are agreeing to. Either week on week off, if they're nesting or one party will keep the house, but they they want to stay in it for a period of time and you can have, that co ownership, but that's one of those things where the court could, ask some questions and generally speaking that the best practice and I've seen judges, they want some dates certain, so it could be in three years in the future. It could be five years, but sometimes the judge will say, you can't just Have an agreement that you're going to co own a house without a date of which they have to refinance. And the reason I had a friend reach out to me and ask me about this he's going through a divorce in New York. The reason is that during the great recession they had, there were a lot of agreements that were uncertain because people just assumed that they could always sell their house for more. And then when the real estate market flipped on its head, People were going to the court and saying, I want to get off this mortgage. And then the other party says, well, the house isn't even worth what the mortgage is. What do, what am I supposed to do? And those issues really came to the fore with the court. So there's other agreements that are going to be held invalid. Chip, can you give, some examples of, impermissible contracts such as, parenting time indefinite parenting time or child support?

Chip Dunn: 12:00

Yeah, and just I want to say one one last thing of the, that train of thought you just had. It's interesting just given now with all the interest rates, and I have noticed that courts have been extending that time for refinancing or whatever a lot longer than it has been normally because it's just a bloodbath out there with the interest rates. So it's interesting to see that the courts are extending that, but they are putting an indefinite time. Correct. And ending time. So it's not, these parties aren't on the hook forever.

Ryan Kalamaya: 12:29

Yeah people will sometimes say. The child support will they won't they intend it for it not to be changed. And the court will, like the court has an independent review or study of child support and what's, cause the child support is supposed to be for the children. And so some courts will say, you can't waive child support and, like they can, you Have an an agreement for zero child support and the court could deviate from the child support worksheet and say, I, I understand that it's in the best interest for the child not to for you to argue and the child's going to be provided, but that's one common one where people will say, I waive child support and, Melanie will say, I waive child support. Well, Melanie can't waive child support because the child support is not for her. It's for the. Child. And so that is a common where a court could come in and say, that agreement is not enforceable. And there, there are others. We don't need to go kind of too far down the rabbit hole. So, why don't we switch gears and talk about challenging the agreement? So if Melanie, she wants to come to, to you and says, I want to challenge the agreement. Can tell listeners a little bit about kind of the burden of proof and what the different vehicles that she can pursue invalidation? Yeah,

Chip Dunn: 13:48

absolutely. the burden of proof for challenging agreements in Colorado is on the spouse seeking to invalidate. So if it was Melanie. Hussain, I have a huge problem with it. It's going to be on her to prove that this needs to be invalidated. That's the big one off the top. A lot of people think well, the court should just understand or this and that. It's yeah, we got to prove our case of why it needs to be invalidated. Part of the two is, getting the documentation, getting, collecting. The witnesses, I mean, it could be anything. If we're talking separation agreement and they're not disclosing everything or whatever, that's, just hurting Melanie to a major degree that she's calling me six months or however long after, the separation agreement is, we need to have some serious proof to show that this needs to be invalidated.

Ryan Kalamaya: 14:33

Right and you talked a little bit about disclosure. We'll get to that next. And so for listeners, there are two paths, mainly for Melanie to set aside or to ask for the court to reopen the decree. The first is rule 60 and there's a six month timeline on that. So after the decree, if soon thereafter within six months, she says, Hey eric wasn't honest, or I was under the influence, or I was coerced, or whatever the case may be, she finds new evidence then she can file a motion, and under Rule 60, the court has the ability to re examine and there is, for example, there's a clerical error. Let's say that there's a typo and it says, 1, 000, 000 and I just think of Austin Powers every time I, say 1, 000, 000, but there is some typo in there that they don't actually have. A million dollars. It's much easier to file a motion under Rule 60 and ask the court to do that. There are circumstances under Rule 60 in which you can ask for the court to amend its decree and by virtue of that revise or open up the decree, but the main one that happens with, much more frequency is the rule 16. 2E10 and so for listeners that don't know, Rule 16. 2 requires mandatory disclosures. And Chip, for those that don't know about the mandatory disclosures, because this is going to segue into Rule 16. 2, which is the second path. And it's the most common path in contrast to the Rule 60 that we just kind of talked about. But what are the what is the mandatory requirements under Rule 16. 2? Yeah

Chip Dunn: 16:16

Rule 16. 2 is crucial when trying to figure out, is there is there a basis for invalidating separation agreements? The Rule 16. 2, both parties are required to exchange mandatory disclosures, which includes the sworn financial statements within the first 42 days of the person being served with the petition for dissolution papers. And so basically what that is the parties need to, and for layman's basically, is the sworn financial statement and the disclosures are a snapshot that party's financial, what's going on in their lives. We're talking the debts the bills. House payment, everything, you put everything within your finances on this one financial statement. And then you also have to disclose all of these documents, three years of taxes, group of income, mortgage statements, all bank statements, all that kind of stuff. So that the other side can have an idea of. What money is going on in this? What does the marital estate look like? And so that you can figure out I'm talking, the beginning of a case, but, when you're at the end of the case, and you, we have a separation agreement, and I'm just thinking in terms of invalidated agreement, if there are major errors, misrepresentations, fraud, whatever, You on sworn financial statement. Maybe they're deficient. Maybe they didn't disclose that they had a trust or they, they had a separate mortgage or this or that, all these things that should have been disclosed at the beginning, that's going to be problematic for trying to keep a separation agreement live if you don't have those proper disclosures that you should have done in the beginning of the case.

Ryan Kalamaya: 17:57

Right. And I think I'll give you kind of a couple of examples from the cases that have addressed this, but I think it's important to know on rule 16. 2E10, which is the, that's the rule that you kind of referenced, the court has up to five years to reallocate any assets or debts That were either materially misrepresented or omitted. Now that is for assets and debts. There's a case in remarriage of daddy Otis. It's the Greek gambling case. And in that case the wife had some Greek gambling, business. She didn't disclose it. It mattered for income. The husband later said, Hey, I shouldn't pay you maintenance. And the court said, listen, the wife, she may not she probably didn't disclose this source of income, but that's the rule 16. 2 E 10 only relates to property. Another kind of point is that anything that is not. Is omitted when it comes to debt is probably going to be where the responsibility of the party that forgot to disclose that debt. So if Eric goes through a divorce and he's Hey, we actually owe back taxes. I forgot about this. We owe a hundred thousand dollars. He's got some different issues on maybe the IRS is going to go after both Eric and Melanie because if it was a joint tax return, but for purposes of the divorce, if Eric. borrowed money and he signed an agreement and he forgot to disclose that in a divorce. The court's probably going to say, listen, sorry dude, you're going to pay that debt. The more interesting question or the thing that comes up is what happens when Eric and Melanie go through a divorce? And this, the key thing on Rule 16. 2E10 is it doesn't have to be an agreement, it could be at trial, but the vast majority of cases settle. And so, what happens if Melanie later discovers that Eric was not completely honest? The divorce and so intermarriage of hunt was the first case that really like it was caused a big hoopla within the matrimonial bar and in hunt, generally speaking, what happened was the parties agreed. They went to mediation on their own. The husband had a business. They agreed to that. The husband will get the business for a particular value. And then they walked out of mediation with. An m o u, they filed the m o u with the court and, then wife got an attorney and sh the attorney started asking questions and determined that she got a raw deal. And so the court went to the, or the lawyer for her went to the court and said the M o u is unenforceable. And here's why. The husband did not disclose balance sheets. Profit and loss statements and it was those were required in the mandatory disclosures that Chip you talked about and so the court said You know, sorry you went to mediation and you signed this agreement I'm going to finalize this divorce based on the terms that you agreed at mediation and the MOU So that case went up to the Colorado Court of Appeals and the Court of Appeals said, Nope, that's an unenforceable agreement. Why? Because you, husband, did not comply with the original spirit and the forms that were required, the balance sheet and the profit and loss. You didn't give that to her. Had he given her those, Then it could have been an enforceable agreement. So there's been a series of other cases that have come up, intermarriage of Evans, intermarriage of Durie, and I think Durie is that went up to the Colorado Supreme Court and it dealt with some issues on pleading that we don't need to get into about, how specific does, Melanie, if she's trying to set it aside. How specific does she need to be? When she asked for the court to set this aside, but Dori, what happened is the parties, they had a joint expert, they valued a business. The valuation of the business was somewhere in the neighborhood of$800,000. And, but they went through experts, they exchanged information, and then they settled. Totally reasonable. Except that 13 months later, the husband sold his business for 6 million. And the wife said, this is, there's something funny going on here. And so she pieced together the husband had flown out during the divorce agreement. And, or divorce negotiations rather, and had a meeting in Tennessee to talk with a potential buyer. The husband said, listen, this was just an out of the blue offer. I got 13 months later and he presented and the email literally says out of the blue, like I'm making this offer out of the blue, but the issue was, did he have a duty to disclose the husband? The fact that he had gone out to Tennessee in the first place to potentially start these negotiations and that was the issue is. And so it's, it can rise to the level of, does someone have to disclose something more than what is required under those mandatory disclosures? And so, since, these various cases, we've had different. Legal guidance opinions from the court of appeals and intermarriage of Evans was one of the more recent ones. And that addressed the issue of, well, do you divide the property? How do you divide the property? So the husband's, the business in the Durie case, what happens? Do you value it at the 800, 000 or do you value it at the 6 million? And what do you do with it? And Evans said. You basically, if it's three years later, you value the property, it could be real estate, it could be the business, it could be whatever it is, and you value it as of three years or, whenever you have a hearing and, but basically everything else is locked in on their, the divorce. So you're really just talking about that one. Asset doesn't reopen the whole divorce. You're just dealing with it in a vacuum But chip, I think you know, you've had these, agreements I know that you had one case where you know The people tried to work it out on their own and you know Then the husband and it was similar to the hunt case where someone said hey, I don't agree with this agreement and so What happened, in that circumstance, Chip?

Chip Dunn: 24:10

Yeah I kept thinking about that case because, Evans is such an interesting case, but, a lot of times, people don't have that business valuation this client that I had previously, the two of them. decided to file jointly, which is great. Everybody always says we want to, leave lawyers out of it, blah, blah, blah. Well, opposing party had a lawyer, but he, the lawyer was kind of, in the background. And they filed a joint parenting plan. They filed a separation agreement. They signed it. They had already provided some of the property. My client was going to give the opposing party, equity from the house and already started the refinancing process. And then suddenly, the opposing party the lawyer filed the entry of appearance in. And asked to invalidate the separation agreement. And then we were called and we were hired and could deal with this sort of mess. And in the meantime, doing my diligence and going through the case file, the disclosures had not been done. The sworn financial had been signed, but they didn't list everything. My client didn't, because they, in their mind, and this is a great lesson on why you need an attorney. Not just to fight, but you need an attorney to organize your life and to go through this in a way that you're not going to have to go back to the well and start over. Because essentially, six months later, because it took a long time for the judge to rule on that motion, the parties that essentially had to start over. And so they've incurred all these extra legal costs, the attorney's fees or whatever, having to go through this mess. And it really was just a lesson of you have to follow rule 16. 2. You have to close everything within the sworn financial statement. And then you have to exchange documents. Had my client done that, This would have been a fair agreement because ultimately, once we did go to mediation, we got back to the same place that we started. But since they didn't do what they were required to do with the sworn financial statement and disclosures, they had to do it all over again. And it's frustrating. It didn't make any sense because both parties signed it. The opposing party said, oh, it was, he gave all the we talked at the top of the hour. Oh, it was duress and coercion. It wasn't. And this is what he want, the parties wanted anyway, I feel bad because, they could have had this done months prior, to any involvement from the courts

Ryan Kalamaya: 26:35

or from me. Yeah, I've had, several cases where people try to do it on their own and one in particular, I mean, I had, there was a motion that was to set aside three years later and it was because, there were a couple boxes on the Swarm Financial Statement that weren't checked or they ran out of room and they didn't know what to do with it. So they ran out of room in terms of listing property was for real estate and the piece of property that was at issue that the wife said, well, this wasn't disclosed. It was in the separation agreement, but it wasn't on the sworn financial statement and because they had run out of room. And so it's these stories, I think, people don't understand the value of lawyers in particular of checking those boxes, but then you get into the. The disclosures in the backup documentation, which under Evans, it really emphasized how important those documents are. You could have an agreement that says, I am releasing all claims, I'm giving away my kidneys, I'm donating my liver, and has this robust release language. And that's not as effective as if Eric gives Melanie tax returns, bank statements, the things that are required and arms her with the information to make a decision, then that is more important. The issue is that people don't know how to document that. In our circumstance, or our, in our clients, we keep a copy of the records. We then send out a Dropbox link. We label that's Bates labeling. We have a date and we have, and then we'll file something with the court that says we gave these bank statements. We don't file the bank statements with the court, but when people overlook the certificate of compliance of rule 16. 2, when they file it with the court, and then also, I don't think that they understand how important filling out that swarm financial statement is. Because if they say that the business is worth 800, 000 and it's really worth 6 million, I mean, they could have had an agreement before they even filed, but those statements really do matter. It begs the question, should you just put zero or should you just put like TBD or I don't know, but the disclosure really matters and giving people the information if Melanie doesn't look at it that's going to be on her, it's going to be much harder for her, but I don't think people really understand how important those requirements are.

Chip Dunn: 29:15

Right. And just to piggyback off of that that's why it's important to have a lawyer, because you shouldn't, you, this person who's going through this divorce, you don't know what you don't know. If you're asking yourself, should I disclose that? Or, oh, that's not an issue. Or, oh, it's this or that. It's you need to talk to a lawyer to help you figure out, should this be disclosed? And most likely the answer is going to be yes. The more disclosure, the

Ryan Kalamaya: 29:40

better. Right. And it's the question is why not? I mean, you're not going to get in trouble for disclosing something that doesn't exist. And the categories, I think the business, the financial records, that's often overlooked, by parties, the credit applications. Those are some of the, you Chip, you and I've had the conversation, like when someone, if Eric has applied for a loan with a car or a house, oftentimes he'll put a list of. The assets and his income and all of that. And those are often overlooked in terms of, disclosure, I think, tax returns, bank statements, that stuff's easy or at least that's generally complied with, but those I think are helpful tips for people when they're going through. A divorce and why the rules exist and what the perspective of the bench is, but just kind of tie it full circle. I think it's, it's really hard to set aside an agreement. If there are two attorneys involved. And, it was a voluntary agreement. But you know, the disclosure is the real, that's the real wild card because if an attorney doesn't know, and it's kind of incumbent on us, we have to do some digging and some due diligence and making sure that our clients do comply with those disclosure requirements.

Chip Dunn: 30:55

Right. Exactly that. And if you're curious about invalidating agreements or you don't like it, talk to a lawyer, make sure that you're understanding why you think it's invalid, not just that you're bummed, like you say, divorce remorse. And then, likewise, if you're contemplating divorce, talk to an attorney, even if you feel that you can do it on your own and there's enough smart people that sometimes, they can just do it on their own. But realistically, you've got to talk to an expert who can tell you, this is what it's going to take and this is what you're going to need. And that's going to help you. And ultimately, everybody wants to save money, Ryan, everybody, every client I talk about. They want to keep costs down. They want to keep costs down. The best way to do that is telling your lawyer everything, closing everything, and just Getting stuff done and early and that keeps the cost down because that way you're not having to ask more questions of where's this I've heard about this and that, you just start going down the rabbit hole of not disclosing things and you start getting the territory of misrepresentation and then you're opening yourself up to a potential invalidating agreements.

Ryan Kalamaya: 31:54

Yeah, I frequently will look at agreements and say, Hey, why don't you clarify this language? I think it's going to be more likely it's more, more palatable and it's going to reduce the likelihood that you come back and have to argue about what this agreement means. But then also I'll talk with, clients that are just consulting and say these are the kind of requirements and disclosure. And I often tell people is, it's better to spend, a couple thousand dollars and have, a virtual sure. Thing as opposed to trying to do it on your own and then kind of fumbling it, and then two years later be required, or not necessarily required, be forced to spend a hundred thousand dollars going to trial because you forgot to check the box. And that's Pennywise, Pound, Foolish and a lot of people they do take that perspective. So, but hopefully, people have learned something. It is an evolving area of the law, that Rule 16. 2. The courts have tried to provide more guidance because the facts and the circumstances they vary. Widely because you mentioned about discovery and what happens if someone does have a concern, the Dury case, I mentioned it, it kind of allowed for the court to say, what? You need, you get to the opportunity, a second bite at the apple to learn more about how much this value, the business is worth or whatever the thing that is at issue. And so you could be asking better questions at that point, but you know, discovery is expensive and the whole idea is to have finality to a divorce and hopefully this episode helps people. Realize what it takes to achieve finality. But thanks for joining us Chip. Until next time, thanks for joining us on Divorce at Altitude. hey everyone. This is Ryan again. Thank you for joining us on Divorce at Altittude. If you found our tips, insight, or discussion helpful, please tell a friend about this podcast. For show notes, additional resources or links mentioned on today's episode, visit Divorce at Altittude dot com. Follow us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen in. Many of our episodes are also posted on YouTube. You can also find Amy and. Law or 9 7 0 3 1 5 2 3 6 5. That's aaa.