This is part 4 of 8 of our series on what forms you need to file for temporary orders in your divorce case. Last week we went over the Motion and Declaration. Next week we’ll go over the sealed financial source documents form (and accompanying documents).

A Financial Declaration is a sworn document in which you tell the court how much money you make, and how much money you spend on expenses like your mortgage or rent, utilities, food, transportation, and many other common expenses (even, for example, gym membership fees and magazine subscriptions).

You will also need to provide supporting documents such as pay stubs and bank statements (more on that next week). One tricky thing about the financial declaration is that although it a sworn statement, under penalty of perjury, it is not necessarily a statement of current expenses, but of prospective expenses. It reads:

Expenses should be calculated for the future, after separation, based on the anticipated residential schedule for the children.

In other words, if you are asking the court for custody of your children, and plan to get a three-bedroom apartment to accommodate this, your financial declaration should show how much you think it will cost. Of course, if you are already in that apartment, just list your current expenses.

WHY YOU NEED IT

A Financial Declaration is required if you are asking the court for any kind of financial relief such as child support, spousal maintenance, or a division of your debts and assets.  If you are asking for spousal maintenance, you need a financial declaration to show the court how much you need.  If you are asking the court to divide responsibility for household bills between you and your spouse, the court needs to understand how much each spouse makes, and how much each spouse spends (and on what) in order to determine who should be responsible for what proportion of your bills.

WHERE YOU GET IT

Like all documents needed in a temporary orders proceedings, you can pick up a blank Financial Declaration form on the Washington Pattern Forms site.

WHAT IS LOOKS LIKES IT

You can find the Word version here.