I was talking to my Broker last evening (she’s my boss) and she said to me “well, you know, you’re really good at divorce sales. You administer so many of them year after year in the office; more that most. I’m sure you’ll make it work.”

What? I’m the divorce girl of the office now? How did that happen?

I guess I have “done” a lot of divorce sales in my time in real estate. They are tricky listings, emotionally speaking. In general this is how I view a divorce sale in terms of the depth of the file:

1. Everyone is happy and everyone wants to get divorced and we don’t disagree about anything;
2. Everyone is happy and everyone wants to get divorced but we have some issues we need to negotiate to make everyone happy so we’re going to work on that;
3. We hate each other but we will make it work without lawyer’s because we don’t want to pay for that type of cost;
4. We hate each other so much that we can’t make it work without a lawyer to help us work this out amicably so we’re going to mediation together;
5. We hate each other so much and mediation is a waste of time so we’ve both retained our own lawyer;
6. We hate each so much and our lawyers are so good that we’re starting “official legal process”;
7. We’re in a fully arbitrated divorce – full and frank financial disclosure is required, we have attend court for the process of Discovery; and it’s costing us a lot of money;
8. We’re in a full trial divorce. Help….

As the title of my blog this week suggests, the process of getting divorced is, in fact, big business.

My advice to anyone in this position is to seek council from a lawyer and a Realtor at the earliest practical opportunity. We can help you so much more efficiently if you contact us when you’re at the step 1 above.