When you're getting divorced, it's also important to deal with financial matters between yourself and your former partner. It is quite common for one partner to be unaware of what the other partner has. You may even worry that your former partner is not being truthful when disclosing their assets to you.
When there are financial proceedings, both parties owe a duty to the Court to make full and frank disclosure of their assets as part of those proceedings. This is a continuing duty throughout the proceedings and so if further assets are acquired during the course of the proceedings, these need to be disclosed.
Financial Remedy Order
If you issue an application for a Financial Remedy Order, the first thing the Court will ask you both to do is exchange financial statements, also known as Forms E and include supporting documents. Documents include:
- Property valuations
- Mortgage statements
- Bank statements
- Pension statements
- Payslips
- P60s
- Business accounts
- Evidence of debts such as credit cards and loans
- Anything else that could be considered a matrimonial asset
Once you have exchanged financial documents, your solicitor will review these to see if they notice anything unusual about the disclosure or whether there are any irregularities in the information provided by your former partner. You will also get a chance to look at the documentation. If you believe that your former partner has not disclosed anything then you would be able to question this. The Court give both parties the option of filing a Questionnaire to raise queries on your former partner’s disclosure. Following the responses to the Questionnaire, if you're still not happy then your solicitor can prepare a Schedule of Deficiencies. They can serve it on your former partner, setting out why you believe the disclosure is inadequate or deficient. Sometimes this may be enough to discover assets that have been hidden by your spouse.
Form of Authority
Another option would be to ask your spouse to sign a Form of Authority. This allows your solicitor to contact their bank directly so that you can obtain details of all accounts held with them. Your spouse would have to agree to sign this as this is not something that the Court can order.
If the Court do find out that your spouse has failed to disclose all of their assets, this will be taken into account when they determine the Final Order to be made.
In high net worth cases some people are now hiring private investigators or forensic accountants to help discover hidden assets. It has become more common for assets to be hidden in offshore sophisticated trusts and the Court have become aware of this. The court would expect full and frank disclosure of any trust such as these and will request documentation showing how they were created and run.
Our specialist Divorce and Family Solicitors in Rochdale can help with all aspects of Divorce and Financial Issues - give them a call on 01706 644187.
