Relationship breakdown is a difficult and highly emotive subject for everyone involved. But when financial disputes arise, the proceedings can become particularly prolonged and stressful.
Where a couple’s finances are particularly complex, involving a broad portfolio of assets and investments, they may simply disagree about the estimated value of their wealth.
However, it is also common for one of the partners to try to hide or dispose of assets to prevent them from becoming part of the proceedings. For example, where one partner:
Primarily manages the couple’s money making it easy for them to conceal assets
Owns a successful business that they want to avoid becoming part of the divorce proceedings
Has a significantly higher income and wants to avoid paying spousal or child maintenance
Divorce law states that couples must be completely open and honest about their finances and the division upon divorce or dissolution must be fair to both parties. Only in certain circumstances can assets be left out of the financial proceedings, for example, if specific assets were acquired by one of the partners before they got married or entered into a civil partnership.
A forensic accountant can play a vital part of divorce and dissolution proceedings, including where there are concerns about hidden assets, understated income and fraud.
The role of the forensic accountant is to calculate the estimated value of hidden assets so that they can be taken into account during divorce financial proceedings. Taking this step now could save you a lot of time, stress and money by avoiding a scenario where you have to re-open financial proceedings later on.