Generally, both parties are aware of the financial standings of the family.   However, there are still many living situations where only one party is privy to the financial information of the family.  If you are going through a divorce and have not recently been involved in paying bills, opening/reviewing mail, preparing taxes, balancing your bank account or you do not have access to any accounts, you need to notify your attorney immediately.  This situation can be very dangerous as you may think you are financially stable, however, due to your spouse’s mismanagement or misrepresentation, your family has a great deal of debt.   The opposite may be true as well.  You may think that your family is living paycheck to paycheck, however, in reality your spouse has been hiding assets from you.

There are several avenues to obtain this information. One way is through informal or formal discovery.  This is the path that attorney’s take to request information from the other party and then the other party provides the information or objects to the request.  This can be a lengthy process and if you ultimately feel that your spouse is still hiding something after producing the documents that you requested, you may want to go a more aggressive route.  You may want to hire an investigator, more specifically, a forensic accountant.   The advice of a forensic accountant can be invaluable, helping to ensure that the divorce settlement is based upon full disclosure of information.

Simply put, forensic accountants analyze money.  By sifting through complex financial documents, forensic accountants develop an accurate assessment of the relevant financial situation. When forensic accountants become involved in family law disputes, they evaluate when money is coming into the family, where assets are stored, and how assets are being distributed.   Property division can only be fair with a full understanding of the marital assets. If both spouses have not been actively involved in the management of family finances, one might not be aware of all investments.   If one spouse is attempting to conceal assets, it may be nearly impossible for an untrained person to them.  A forensic accountant can investigate and review finances to determine whether there are hidden assets and to ensure that the property division accounts for all martial assets.