What is unlearning?

Unlearning is the process of letting go, reframing, and moving away from once useful mindsets and acquired behaviors that were effective in the past but now limit our success.

It is not forgetting, removing, or discarding knowledge or experience; it is the conscious act of letting go of outdated information and actively engaging in new information to inform effective decision making and action.

How knowledge changes.

It’s easy to fall into the trap of trusting our learned knowledge. However, as the divorce market changes, so does our understanding of it. For our understanding to reflect the current process, we must continuously adapt, learn, and unlearn.

“Knowledge grows, and simultaneously it becomes obsolete as reality changes… Understanding involves both learning new knowledge and discarding obsolete and misleading knowledge.” Bo Hedberg | How Organizations Learn & Unlearn – Vol 1: Oxford University Press (1981)

Traditionally, divorcing spouses are referred to a mortgage professional once the divorce is final. Unfortunately, this mindset and cycle severely diminish the ability to obtain mortgage financing post-divorce successfully. Incorporating divorce mortgage planning into the divorce process will be more successful for both divorcing spouses.

Successful divorce professionals must be willing to adapt; they need to learn new things and unlearn information that ties them down. Changing our behavior will change our perspective, impacting our mindset and affecting our outcomes.

Often in a divorce, we are more focused on curing the problem at hand, i.e., distributing real property and assets, that we forget there is life after divorce. The biggest challenge is the lack of knowledge, understanding, and preparedness of how the various pieces of the divorce puzzle fit together and indeed overlap.

For example, the verbiage in the divorce settlement agreement (or the structure of support income or the division of assets) and specific aspects of the real property can directly impact the ability to obtain mortgage financing. And the mortgage option chosen can directly affect any financial or tax planning set up in the divorce settlement as well.

What is Divorce Mortgage Planning?

Divorce Mortgage Planning is a holistic approach to evaluating mortgage options in the context of the overall financial objectives related to divorcing situations. Working directly with the divorce team, a CDLP® understands the intersection of divorce, financial and tax planning, real property, and mortgage planning. The role of the CDLP® is to help integrate the mortgage selected into the overall long and short-term financial and investment goals to help minimize taxes, minimize interest expense, and maximize cash flow.

Incorporating the four phases of divorce mortgage planning into the traditional divorce settlement process helps divorcing homeowners make more informed decisions regarding their home equity solutions and mortgage financing opportunities during and after the divorce.   

Unlearning the traditional mindset when working with a divorce, real property, and mortgage financing, allows the entire professional divorce team to bring a new and different perspective to the table, and when we work together, we can provide a better solution to divorcing homeowners. Involving a Certified Divorce Lending Professional early in the divorce settlement process can help the divorcing homeowners set the stage for successful mortgage financing in the future.

It is always important to work with an experienced mortgage professional who specializes in working with divorcing clients. A Certified Divorce Lending Professional (CDLP®) can help answer questions and provide excellent advice. Please don’t hesitate to reach out to me directly if I can provide additional information. 

This is for informational purposes only and not for the purpose of providing legal or tax advice. You should contact an attorney or tax professional to obtain legal and tax advice. Interest rates and fees are estimates provided for informational purposes only and are subject to market changes. This is not a commitment to lend. Rates change daily - call for current quotations.  The information contained in this newsletter has been prepared by, or purchased from, an independent third party and is distributed for consumer education purposes.

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