Most divorces in Illinois don’t happen out of the blue. Divorces usually follow a breakdown of the marriage that might have been ongoing for years. During this time, there is usually a serious lack of communication and a loss of trust. There may also be separate bank accounts and hidden assets.
Your spouse may be hiding assets from divorce proceedings
If you are going through a divorce, you may want to look into the possibility that your soon-to-be-ex hid assets from you. He or she may have set up a bank account that you don’t know about or made investments without your knowledge. When it’s time to divide the marital property, your spouse may hope that you never discover what’s hiding so they won’t have to share it.
Common hiding places
Because the marital property is supposed to be divided equitably in a divorce, your spouse might attempt to hide certain assets that you don’t know about yet. Many people will simply deny an asset exists or claim that they lost the account details. Your spouse may have even gone through the effort of transferring a hidden asset to a third party and pretending it’s not theirs.
How to find hidden assets in a divorce
Finding your spouse’s hidden assets will be more difficult if your spouse took a lot of effort to cover their tracks. For example, your spouse may have already destroyed all of the paper account statements that came in the mail. Unless you find some obvious tangible evidence of a hidden asset, your first step is probably to review tax documents.
Work with a forensic accountant
Reviewing years of tax returns for discrepancies can be a tedious and time-consuming process. It can also be difficult to know what to look for unless you are a tax or accounting professional. A forensic accountant may be able to help you go over your marital finances to look for hidden assets.
