How to find assets your spouse has hidden, or lost

Recent Investec Wealth & Investment UK research suggests that around a quarter of people may be economical with the truth about their finances when they break up.

Depending on the value of what isn’t mentioned, any such omissions could be to the significant financial detriment of the spouse kept in the dark. How can you protect against this?

Albeit the initial process of establishing the identity and value of assets relies on each person declaring what they have, the first safeguard is the usual requirement for documents to be produced to prove the numbers. For simple assets, like bank accounts, it is standard for statements to be provided showing the amount in the relevant account on a particular date, or over a specific date range. For more complicated assets, for example, an interest in a business or company, accounts are often sought but by their very nature they can be months old and only show very high level detail. Often significantly more information and documentation is sought, and a single joint expert may be needed to value the interest.

What about where there are general suspicions that the other party is hiding something, though?

Mere accusations or assertions will not wash, and evidence is key. Your family lawyer can, if needed, work with you to try to secure that crucial evidence (if it exists). They will use their experience, skills and knowledge, to find out why you have concerns, and the places where evidence and answers may be found.

They may suggest an AI assisted desktop investigation report. These reports can quickly and cost effectively gather, collate and analyse huge amounts of open source intelligence from a wide range of worldwide sources including but not limited to the electoral roll, companies house, land registry, as well as, for example, social media platforms. Such reports can help confirm whether suspected connections to certain individuals, companies and places exist, or not. This can frame further routes of enquiry and documents your lawyer might pursue.

When documents are obtained, their content can be critical, deciding, evidence in a financial case. Sometimes your lawyer will advise working with a forensic accountant on a tracing exercise. Other times, what documents don’t show is just as important as what they do. For example, are day to day transactions missing from disclosed accounts? This might suggest the existence of another (secret) account. At the more complex end of the spectrum, the content of documentation may be such that your lawyer needs to work with a corporate colleague, forensic accountant, or other professional so that, together, they can advise about e.g. the structure of a group of companies, tax considerations, and monies moved between them.

How can Blake Morgan help?

Considering proportionality – the cost of investigating anomalies and concerns, in the light of the potential value of assets likely to be discovered – is incredibly important throughout. If preliminary steps do not yield enough clues or evidence to suggest there is anything untoward, or to justify incurring further costs, the legal advice may be to stop investigations at that point. This can be a difficult decision, particularly if there is a deeply held (if unsubstantiated) belief that the other spouse cannot be trusted and is hiding assets. Were different evidence to come to the fore later, or indeed after the matter depending on circumstances, it may of course be sensible to reopen the case then.

Unfortunately, deception in divorce is not new but hiding is ever harder. Whilst it is not mandatory to instruct lawyers, it is almost always sensible to take a basic level of advice at the outset. Where there is concern about trust and hidden assets, the need for a family lawyer is magnified. They need to be involved sooner rather than later, to maximise the chances of successfully uncovering wrongdoing and hidden assets. A fair spouse may be rightly concerned about money and express a preference to avoid what they view as expensive legal costs, whereas an untruthful spouse may be more vehemently opposed to the other seeking legal advice. That may be a red flag in itself.