How to Find Out if your Ex is Hiding Assets in your Divorce?

Posted onNovember 15, 2019

When you lose faith and trust in someone and you end up separating or getting divorced, it can make you question the whole basis of your relationship with your former partner.

The top London divorce solicitors are aware that if your partner has cheated on you or behaved in a way that has resulted in divorce proceedings, it can make you look afresh at his or her actions during the relationship and view them in a new light. For example, when your ex said they needed cash to pay for something, did they really, or were they just stashing cash for their exit?

The best London divorce solicitors will tell you that it is not unusual to have questions about a former partner and their finances, especially if:

Your former partner was secretive about money and they did want to open a joint bank account or share financial information;
Your former partner is a business owner but always seemed to want to deal in cash;
Your former partner has previously boasted about hiding money from a first spouse or from a business partner after a business falling out;
The money and figures do not seem to add up as there is a history of a lavish lifestyle but the family business appears to produce little income and has few assets “on the books”;
You believe that your former partner may have transferred money or property to a friend or relative to hide the assets from the divorce proceedings and your financial claims.

How can OTS Solicitors help?

London based OTS Solicitors specialise in resolving financial claims in divorce proceedings. We can help you reach a financial settlement after a separation or divorce.

If you are not able to reach a financial agreement with your former partner because you believe your ex-partner is hiding assets the experienced family law team at OTS Solicitors can investigate, provide pragmatic advice and, if necessary, represent you in financial court proceedings.

For more information about how the family law team at OTS Solicitors can help you please call us on 0203 959 9123 for a confidential chat.

Divorce and hiding assets – the cost benefit analysis

There are many ways that money and assets can be hidden in financial and divorce proceedings. Even the top London divorce solicitors are sometimes surprised by the ingenuity of former partners who attempt to hide money or property and the lengths that they will go to try to thwart a spouse’s financial claims.

For the best London divorce solicitors the most important thing that they need to do is listen to their family law client, after all they know their husband and wife best and will be able to tell you why, and potentially how, they suspect their former partner hid money and assets.

The key point is that a family solicitor and client need to work as a team, sometimes with other professionals, to trace assets and property. In order to work as an effective team there needs to be trust between solicitor and client. That can be hard for a client who is coming out of a relationship where trust has been broken. The inclination may be to want to investigate everything.

Whilst the best London divorce solicitors want to be thorough, they also want to be cost effective. A good divorce solicitor should therefore not follow suspicions about hidden assets blindly but consider:

The likely value of the hidden asset in question;
The relevance of the hidden asset. The item of property or money may be highly relevant if a husband and wife have been married for many years, but less relevant if the couple have only be married for a short period or they signed a prenuptial agreement;
The potential costs involved in tracing the hidden asset and the likely benefit to be gained by finding the asset – are the investigation costs justified by the likely increase in financial settlement?

These questions are justified because when you have discovered that a former partner has had a secret lover or has been dishonest during the relationship, it can be hard to look at the issue of hidden assets and their relevance to your financial claims and divorce proceedings dispassionately. That is why it is so important to have a top London divorce solicitor work with you to make sure that the right balance is struck.

Divorce and hiding assets

The best London divorce solicitors say that there are a myriad number of ways in which assets can be hidden from a spouse. These range from the simplest forms of deception to the most complex. The ways of hiding assets include:

Transferring money out of a current or savings account as cash and saying that the money is spent in cash payments but instead opening a secret bank account with the cash. Sometimes internet printed bank statements can be doctored so attention to detail is required;
Saying that money being taken out of a bank account is for “rent” or to repay debt, but the payments are being made to a new partner or family member;
Saying that a property does not belong to them, as a new partner or family member owns it. However, a land registry search can reveal property ownership details;
Saying that a business does not have any good will value because it has lost an important customer or that the business has little value because the assets are not worth much. However, the property owned by the business may be included in the company accounts at an artificially low figure or at historical values. Independent property valuations can help when business or other property assets are undervalued, or a forensic accountant report can help in the goodwill value of a business is disputed;
Using a business Director Loan Account to hide expenditure from a spouse. The loan account transactions can be examined as part of the financial disclosure process;
Buying bitcoin. Although bitcoin can be hard to trace it can be possible to trace large withdrawals from accounts without associated deposits into other disclosed accounts;
Not disclosing accounts such as a pay pal account;
Not disclosing the existence of family trusts.

Hiding assets and financial disclosure

The top London divorce solicitors say that if you decide to start financial court proceedings then both you and your former partner have a duty to provide full and frank financial disclosure. A spouse who has hidden assets or property may not come clean and provide full and frank financial disclosure.

Within financial court proceedings, there is provision for a questionnaire to be prepared to ask questions about a spouse’s financial disclosure where the disclosure is thought to be incomplete or misleading. A judge has to decide at a court hearing called a first directions appointment hearing whether the questions in a questionnaire are both relevant and proportionate to the financial issues in the case.

The best London divorce solicitors say that the key to finding hidden assets is to:

Listen to your client’s suspicions;
To know where to look when examining financial disclosure such as bank statements;
To know what questions to ask when preparing a financial disclosure questionnaire;
To know what experts to instruct when looking at a business and associated transactions;
To always weigh up the cost benefit ratio of looking for hidden assets with the likely financial court order;
To know when to act quickly if assets are found and need to be preserved, for example by applying for a freezing injunction order.

If you are worried about your husband or wife hiding assets or income the top London divorce solicitors say that it is important to take early legal advice.

How can OTS Solicitors help?

London based OTS Solicitors can help you get to the bottom of your former partner’s financial affairs as the family law team at OTS Solicitors specialise in financial claims and divorce proceedings.

If you are not able to reach a financial agreement with your former partner because you believe that your ex-partner is hiding assets then the experienced family law team at OTS Solicitors can investigate, provide pragmatic advice and, if necessary, represent you in financial court proceedings.

For more information and a discussion about how we can help you please call us on 0203 959 9123 for a confidential chat.