Not everyone wants to play fair when it’s time to divide up the assets in a divorce. If you suspect your spouse has money put away somewhere they’re not telling you about, then you may need help finding it.
You can certainly start looking yourself, though, and here are some of the places to consider:
Right in front of you
Do you know what everything your spouse has bought is worth? Maybe that old car lying in the barn is actually a valuable classic. Perhaps that student painting on the wall is the work of an artist whose star has since risen.
In the virtual world
If your spouse holds cryptocurrency or non-fungible tokens (NFTs), you might have a hard time discovering them and an even harder time accessing them. Their security is the reason why they have become such a popular place to hide assets – that and the fact that many people still do not understand them.
With friends or relatives
Some divorcing spouses use friends or family to conceal their assets for them. It works on every scale, from passing someone a few thousand dollars to deposit in their bank account to buying real estate and registering it in someone else’s name. They would need to trust the person implicitly, so think about whether their closest confidantes have made any unusually large purchases recently.
There are plenty of other ways to hide assets, so you may want help to uncover them and to have them included in the property division process.
