Business owners always have questions about how to value property and assets when getting divorced: one of the main questions is “what are separate assets?”
Separate assets are not always easy to determine. Tracing separate assets is a major part of divorces where there are any substantial assets involved.
In simple terms, a business valuation expert is going to try to determine if there were assets — houses, jewelry, inheritance or other property – owned by one party prior to the marriage AND figure out if the assets should remain the sole property of that party after the marriage.
The major issue in determining what is separate and marital is that Sometimes assets become “comingled” or have basically been mixed with other money and assets contributed during the marriage.
For example — if one spouse owns a house prior to the marriage, but there are payments made from money made during the marriage — how much of the house is separate or marital property?
An analysis of the assets or tracing the assets is usually done when one spouse is claiming that the assets are all separate and is not willing to split them between the parties.
If your spouse is presenting an expert in court, then you will need an expert as well, especially if the facts and documents support your claim. The judge and court needs to hear the expert’s opinion — not your own opinion.
In order to determine whether an asset is separate or marital, a divorce valuation expert will review the financial documents, banks statements, brokerage accounts and other information regarding the various property to determine if assets owned prior to the marriage can still be considered “separate” in the eyes of the family law court.
The divorce valuation expert will have to spend time looking at all the documents in order to understand what is separate, or potentially only owned by one spouse and what is marital and part of the whole estate.
If you would like to learn more about marital or separate assets in divorce, business valuations, how to value a company, or how to find a qualified valuation appraiser – check out our additional videos at http://www.YouTube.com/businessvaluationstl
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