Worried that your spouse has decided to hide assets so that you will not get what you deserve during the divorce? It does happen, despite being illegal. The good news is that you can often find these assets. Many of the schemes are quite transparent or count on people not looking closely enough.
For instance, some people will take out small amounts of money for years on end. Every time they go to the grocery store, they may get cash back. They can then set the money aside. A spouse who doesn’t dig into the financial records may not realize the money is missing, but all of those transactions are on your electronic bank statements. You can trace that money or at least see that it is “missing.”
Another common scheme is to withdraw money and give it to someone else to hold during the divorce. This is highly transparent if you look at the banking records and see the withdrawal. Be wary that the person may have a cover story, such as claiming that they owed that person the money from years before, but these thin stories usually fall apart with questioning.
As one woman who has a lot of experience with these cases put it in an interview with Fatherly: “These [tactics to hide assets] are almost all discoverable in some way if you have a clever attorney.”
The key is to understand what assets should exist and to take the time to really look into all of the financial records. Information is power. You also want to know what legal options you have when assets are missing or you suspect they have been hidden.