High Net Worth Divorces: How Your Divorce May Look in Sarasota, Bradenton, and Venice, Florida
A high net worth divorce can be complicated if not planned in advance well. If your liquid assets are above one million five hundred thousand ($1,500,000.00) dollars, then you are considered a high net worth couple, and your divorce can be among the more complicated ones which require extra attention and expertise. Sarasota divorce attorneys such as Matthew Z. Martell, Esq. at the Law Offices of Matthew Z. Martell has much expertise dealing with high net worth divorces. Having Attorney Martell represent you will make the divorce process for your high net worth divorce much more bearable. If you have been wondering just how complex a high net worth divorce may look, here is a preview of some of the things you can expect:
Child support
In a scenario where parents have an average total yearly income, the Court uses the parents’ income, the monthly costs of daycare, before school care, and/or after school care; the monthly costs of the child’s health insurance; and the monthly costs of the child’s uncovered medical, dental, vision, and prescription expenses in a statutory formula to determine child support. The case is different when the parents are high-net-worth individuals since child support is ultimately based upon the child’s proven needs. In other words, if one parent makes $1M/year, the monthly child support should not be calculated so high that it creates a savings component to it because there is such an excess surplus of child support funds. Working with our Sarasota divorce attorneys at the Law Offices of Matthew Z. Martell, as well as expert witness forensic accountants that we routinely employ, will help you determine the needs of your child with much greater ease. If you are the parent with a very high income, for example, your spouse might manipulate the situation by exaggerating the needs of your child. That is why you need one of the best Sarasota divorce attorneys like Matthew Z. Martell to help represent your legal interests by establishing the true monthly financial needs of your child.
Hidden assets
It is fairly common in high net worth divorces causes that initially claims are made that there are hidden assets. Oftentimes, this claim is made by a spouse who does not have a good grasp and understanding of the couple’s finances and also routinely does not work outside the marital home. Sometimes claims are made of hidden offshore accounts in the Caribbean, Switzerland, or other exotic international locations. It has been my experience as a Sarasota, Bradenton, Lakewood Ranch, and Florida divorce lawyer for the last 22 years that these claims of large amounts of hidden international assets basically never pan out as being legitimate. It has also been my experience that people generally do not trust their money with anyone but themselves. So, claims that a girlfriend or boyfriend is holding large sums of money secretly for your spouse also very rarely pan out as being true. However, it is also easy enough to hide some money domestically with a family member, so it is something that needs to be investigated legitimately sometimes. Rest assured that high net worth attorneys such as Sarasota, Bradenton, and Venice, FL divorce attorney Matthew Z. Martell are always in liaison with the right parties, such as expert witness forensic accountants, who can help unravel any assets that have been hidden by a spouse in anticipation of a divorce.
Preparation of an inventory of assets and debts
A high net worth divorce includes listing all assets and liabilities, which is going to take a lot of your time. Generally speaking, the more you own and/or owe, then the more time it takes to list it all properly on your Family Law Financial Affidavit. Additionally, Florida law requires that you each file a Certificate of Compliance with Mandatory Disclosure. Basically, this is the required exchange of a large amount of primarily financial documents and some legal documents with your spouse. Additionally, it is fairly common for discovery requests to be propounded to each side which normally request a very large amount of financial records to be produced. Preparation and organization is key to keeping your legal fees and court courts down. Basically, if you give your attorney a large banker’s box of records that are in no particular order, then you are going to have to pay him or her to figure out what it is, organize it, and then produce it in the legally appropriate manner. So being organized is very important, will save you money, and will help to keep a better relationship between you and your divorce attorney. In summary, if you have a high net worth divorce, then be prepared to spend a very large amount of time obtaining, compiling, organizing, and producing financial records in you case especially if you are making claims that certain assets are non-marital.
Go with a Sarasota Divorce Attorney who knows what you can expect in a high-net worth divorce.
If you are looking to make things easier for yourself, contact the Law Offices of Matthew Z. Martell and let us make the high net worth divorce process easy for you. We know what to expect because we routinely handle high net worth divorces. Many Sarasota, Bradenton, Lakewood Ranch, and Venice, FL divorce attorneys are recently “throwing their hat into the ring” and advertising that they do high-net worth divorces. The truth is if you get a high-volume regular divorce lawyer to try to handle your high-net worth divorce then he or she is not going to have the time needed to deal with it. Secondly, this attorney will not be familiar with complex financial issues that tend to come up in only in high net worth divorces and will not know how to handle them either. We intentionally limit the number of cases and clients we take so that we have enough time to properly deal with complex divorce cases such as high net worth divorces. Please contact Sarasota Divorce Attorney Matthew Martell at (941) 556-7020 for a 15-minute free initial phone consultation. We are here to help you with your Sarasota, Bradenton, and Venice high-net worth divorce.
