Divorce Lawyer
During a divorce, you may suspect your spouse of hiding assets and that is why high net worth hiding assets divorce lawyers in Bainbridge, WA are there to help.
Part of the divorce process requires both spouses to disclose all their financial assets. There are times one of the spouses may not fully disclose all their assets and while it may be merely an oversight it could also be very intentional. The hiding of assets is especially relevant in high net worth divorces and divorces where one or both of the individuals own a business.
How Assets Are Hidden
There is a multitude of ways that one spouse can try to hide assets from the other. For example, if spouses own a business and are getting divorced then one spouse may use the business to make it seem that they have less money than they do. This could mean they wait until after the divorce is finalized to make lucrative deals or even pain people who simply don’t exist.
A way for spouses without businesses to attempt to hide assets is to setting up trusts or gifting money to someone who will return it after the divorce is finalized. Typically spouses that hide assets involve family members or friends in the process. There are also times one of the spouses already met a new partner and will use marital assets to pay for expenses for that person.
How Hidden Assets Can Be Found
Just because one spouse attempts to hide assets doesn’t mean that they can be found. Even if one spouse was solely responsible for managing the money the other spouse can request copies of all financial documents. If you are suspicious of your spouse hiding assets then bringing in a forensic accountant could be a way to help you find all the assets. This is also when your divorce lawyer comes to help you find someone qualified to work for you.
If you don’t get a forensic accountant involved your divorce lawyer still has many ways they can help attempt to relocate hidden assets. One way is the divorce discovery process, which is an evidence gathering process before trial in which both parties are required to answer certain questions and turn over documents or other evidence. Common documents of the spouse may be asked to turn over are tax documents, account statements, loan documents, and any other paperwork that relates to assets.
During the discovery process, your lawyer can ask your spouse to give specific financial documents and answer questions called and interrogatories, and even get them access to the property. An example of this would be that your lawyer may want to be able to access your spouse’s art collection with an appraiser to make sure the collection is valued correctly.
If you suspect your spouse of hiding assets, contact a high net worth divorce lawyer, like our team at Robinson & Hadeed is a great step in making sure everything is done as fairly as possible.