Divorce in Rhode Island – The Confusing Financial Form DR-6

If you are going through divorce proceedings in Rhode Island, you will be presented with a form known as a DR-6. This form requires you to provide a variety of financial information. It must appear in any new divorce proceeding in the Rhode Island Family Court and most people find it to be one of the most annoying tasks of their divorce.

The DR-6 form that you MUST submit when filing your Rhode Island Divorce Complaint is your Statement of Assets and Financial Obligations. It is usually a single page with front and back that must be completed. The front of the form lists your assets and income, and the back of the form lists your expenses and debt. It has generally been understood that you only enter your specific information on this form.

For example, on the front of the form, for income, you should write your income if you are employed or any income you receive personally. You would not list your combined income with your spouse. In a Rhode Island divorce, it is important for the family court judge to have an idea of ​​what your income is in the marriage and what assets you own or claim an interest in now that your marriage has broken down. This assists the court by providing information that the judge may consider relevant to making an equitable distribution of marital property between you and your spouse.

The top of the first side of Financial Form DR-6/Asset and Liability Statement is usually covered by simply transferring the information from a weekly, biweekly, or monthly paycheck to the various matching boxes between the form and your paycheck

The rest of the front of the DR-6 financial form looks for information about life and health insurance, bank accounts, and assets such as the equity in your home or other real estate, tangible assets, retirement accounts (i.e., 401k, 403b, IRA accounts, Pensions) and motor vehicles.

In addition to the income portion of the front of the DR-6, the rest of the form looks for information that may overlap. For example, if you have a joint bank account with your spouse, you should list this account and how much is in the account because you both “own” that bank account as an asset. However, it would be prudent to note on the form that this is a “joint” bank account. If you’re approximating the value of something, you might want to put in the “approx” notation. next to the number or “best approx.” for your best approximation of what you think the value may be.

The reverse side of this required form on your Rhode Island divorce form is the expense and expense information. This provides your current financial picture information. In other words, specifically what you are currently paying for.

The back of the DR-6 form is often misconstrued for good reason. Many people fill out multiple columns, as there are weekly, bi-weekly, and monthly columns on the form. This happens despite the fact that the form indicates that you must select only one column. A column must be selected and everything must be calculated based on that single column. So you have to calculate everything up to monthly, weekly or bi-weekly. . . whatever works best for you.

The bottom of the form gives a final calculation chart indicating the minimum amount of money you need to meet your obligations. This is what often confuses clients because it seems to tell them that they should put up everything they could be responsible for, OR everything that has their name on it as an obligation, or even a portion of everything they claim to have an interest in. that has a payment on it. The fear is that the judge will order the client to pay for additional things that he has not accounted for on his DR-6 form and will leave the client with no money to pay for them.

Rhode Island divorces are difficult enough that you don’t have to stress over a confusing form. This form is intended to be updated during the divorce proceedings as often as necessary to keep the court up to date with each party’s changing financial circumstances. It has been used by Rhode Island family court judges to help make suggestions about equitable distribution of assets, as well as a reasonable contribution of debt between parties. It is also used to determine income for child support purposes. The form can also be very helpful in determining whether the income and debt obligations between the parties support a possible court determination that there should be a deferred sale of the marital home if there are minor children of the parties and the income and assets of the parties is sufficient to support the household with the parties residing separately.

The DR-6 form can, and often is, confusing. It’s not something customers should really stress about. Just take the time to state your current financial situation, give your best guesses when exact figures are not possible and/or information is not available, and be sure to notify your attorney and update the form if your financial situation changes.