We occasionally receive enquiries from people getting divorced who want to hide assets from their spouse.
Naturally this is not something we ever assist our clients in doing.
It’s illegal to fail to disclose full details of wealth when getting divorced. In fact, in two recent court cases jail sentences were handed down for this failure to disclose.
A new survey from The Co-operative Legal Services has found that as many as a quarter of divorced people tried to hide some of their finances from partners.
Women were more likely to admit to this than men, according to the survey.
Some commons methods used to hide assets on divorce included hoarding cash before a split or making up fictitious debts owed to relatives.
Working with a Financial Planner who has experience of divorce cases is a good way to avoid your partner from hiding or failing to disclose assets.
Our knowledge of financial policies, including pensions and investments, helps us to ‘sense check’ the financial disclosure information provided by the other party.
We also help our divorcing clients to complete Form E, ensuring that they are providing a full and frank disclosure of their financial position to the courts.
These survey findings suggest that hiding assets on divorce, whilst illegal, is fairly common practice.
When it happens and is not picked up, people getting divorced can be financially worse off as a result.
Photo credit: Flickr/SashaW
