Tuesday 27 November 2007

What your wife WILL do in pre divorce planning.

I am often told by new clients how they cannot believe that THEIR wife would do anything underhand to them in the course of a divorce. I am also often told by new clients how they cannot believe what THEIR wife did, not just in the course of the divorce, but even before a divorce case was launched! Square the circle folks and you find as I do that if you scratch the surface, all women in or contemplating a divorce will do remarkably similar things to undermain a man's asset protection strategies.

To illustrate the point I recently read an online article by a U.S. divorce lawyer as advice to women on finding out as much as possible about a spouses financial and business affairs PRIOR to divorce. It makes interesting reading for those of us on the other side of the fence, namely seeking to protect assets and wealth in divorce. She stressed the need to find out as much as possible about a husbands business and financial affairs BEFORE the divorce was launched; this included opening mail, making a note of Bank account details, requesting copies of tax returns the wife had signed for as many years as possible and where she had not signed, then if she had access to his place of business going there and trying to find them. She also advised about "suspicious" transfers to others and valuing assets like paintings and other art.

It just reinforces one of the points that I always make; financial privacy is the key to asset and wealth protection. Keep confidential matters confidential and they have a good chance of remaining confidential; fail to, and you will constantly be chasing after your wife and her divorce lawyer to react to their next legal move on foot of what they know about your financial affairs.

If you don't think your wife would do these things as pre divorce planning then WAKE UP AND SMELL THE ROSES! I'm telling you, I cannot remember a case where a wife DID NOT go through her husbands mail to find details of bank statements, accountants' advice, life policies etc. As sure as "eggs is eggs", SHE WILL DO IT!!!!! - Think guys, she may even be doing it today!!!

On a final point, you will notice that the lawyer refers to a wife getting copies of the tax returns she has signed. Apart from her own individual tax returns, she can only legitimatley get other returns where she has signed either as a partner or a Company Director. The lesson? It may seem obvious, but if your wife is a partner or an officer of your company that is something that needs to be resolved BEFORE she thinks that your doing so is a problem!

http://www.doctorditcher.com/
mailto:doctorditcher@hushmail.com

1 comment:

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