Wealth can make many aspects of life simpler, but it typically complicates a divorce. Reaching a fair property settlement can be challenging when you and your spouse have substantial holdings, and making appropriate decisions regarding the children can be more difficult when they are accustomed to a privileged lifestyle.
Privacy can also be critical when a couple has a high profile. The safety of your family might be at risk if financial information becomes public. Many high net-worth people also have concerns about keeping business and personal information from the public to avoid reputational damage.
Work with an Atlanta, GA high-asset divorce lawyer if you and your spouse have a high income or substantial wealth. You need a trusted divorce attorney with financial sophistication and an appreciation of your need for privacy and discretion.
Many high-net-worth couples have holdings that include interests in businesses or professional practices or partnerships. You might have substantial investment portfolios, pensions or retirement plans, real estate, and interests in trusts.
When you divorce, you both must disclose and value all your assets and debts. Identifying all assets and liabilities and valuing them appropriately requires help from experts like forensic accountants, appraisers, tax experts, and others. The process can take months or even longer, depending on the property and whether both spouses are forthcoming and honest. Unless a marital agreement is in place, the Georgia family courts will seek to equitably divide all marital assets and debts. It is important to note that equitable does not necessarily mean even. Courts will consider a variety of issues in this process, such as a spouse’s personal ties to an asset, the source of funding to acquire it, and other factors when determining how to divide property between spouses.
Significant business ownership interests can be especially difficult to appraise and factor into a division of assets. A business owned jointly by the divorcing spouses can also complicate the division of assets. The parties may have to consider buyout options or selling the entire interest to a third party.
Georgia also does not have a uniform business appraisal method for use in family courts, which means the spouses will have to rely on independent appraisers to provide a valuation. Common methods for a business valuation may include earnings or revenue multipliers, discounted cash flow models, book value, or liquidation value. A spouse or their hired appraiser may attempt to downplay the value of a company through biased appraisal methods or through other business activities. For example, a spouse may make large capital expenditures, take on a large debt, or delay closing on a valuable transaction until after the divorce is final.
Working with a divorce attorney with a grasp of financial matters, business compensation, and taxation can help the process move smoothly. Our Atlanta, GA attorneys have a network of experts that can assist in identifying, finding, and valuing marital assets when they are significant.
Couples with considerable assets often have prenuptial agreements or marriage contracts that describe how to divide assets in a divorce. These contracts are common in marriages where there is a disparity in the spouse’s wealth or where both spouses have unique or valuable assets they wish to protect. A prenuptial agreement is a contract entered into by the spouses before their wedding while a postnuptial agreement is one the spouses agree to after they are married.
These agreements can often simplify the property division process. For example, they may call for the spouses to retain all separate property and split marital assets evenly. Alternatively, a marital agreement may afford one spouse a lump-sum upon divorce or stagger a payout based on the length of the marriage. However, when the stakes are high, the spouse who gave up rights in the marital contract could challenge the agreement’s validity. The judge may refuse to enforce an agreement if a spouse can prove they did not receive an accurate financial disclosure or for several other reasons.
Marital contracts signed under duress or coercive measures can often place them at risk of being unenforceable. For example, this could apply in cases where a spouse did not have an opportunity to seek independent legal counsel before signing it or if there was not enough time between the contract’s signature and the wedding to fairly contemplate its effect.
The misappropriation or commingling of assets is another issue that could invalidate a prenuptial or postnuptial agreement. A misappropriation may occur through using funds on purchases that both spouses did not get to equally enjoy or benefit from. Using funds in an extramarital relationship is another common situation that could allow a court to bypass the terms of a premarital agreement that protects separate property.
Litigating whether an agreement is enforceable adds time and expense to a divorce. However, the process may be necessary if the agreement is inequitable under the circumstances of the marriage, and upholding its terms would severely jeopardize a spouse’s welfare.
Most couples use a formula to calculate the child support the non-residential parent must pay to the parent who lives with the children most of the time. When a couple is high-income, the process is more complex.
The Official Code of Georgia Annotated § 19-6-15(i)(2)(A) requires judges to use the highest payment the formula provides as the starting point. Courts try to ensure that children can maintain their accustomed lifestyle after a divorce. This could include attending the same private school, continuing the same extracurricular activities, remaining in the same neighborhood, and keeping memberships in the same clubs. An Atlanta attorney can help a parent convince the judge that the child support they requested best supports the children’s best interests in a high net-worth divorce proceeding.
No matter how bitter a couple’s feelings toward each other might be, avoiding a litigated divorce is in everyone’s best interests. A litigated or contested divorce happens when one spouse files for divorce before the couple has agreed on all the issues they must resolve before divorcing.
High-asset divorces take a long time to resolve in most cases. Working through the family court system to settle your disagreements could lead to long delays and significant legal bills. In addition, the process is public, and you are subject to the court’s discretion in how it chooses to divide assets and make other orders regarding alimony or child support. High-net-worth couples are also likely to have expensive personal property and luxury goods that may be difficult to evenly divide or liquidate. It may be preferable to reach an agreement outside of court to avoid a court order to sell certain property that may be impossible to replace.
You could seek to resolve your issues through mediation and other alternative dispute-resolution strategies. These processes allow you and your spouse to work out your issues and create written agreements that your attorneys submit to the Georgia family courts for approval. These methods are less expensive, more private, and much better suited to resolving complex issues than taking the matter to trial. An Atlanta, GA attorney can represent you through any of these processes and help ensure your agreements protect your rights and meet legal requirements.
When couples decide to divorce, they often want it to happen as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, a high-asset divorce can be complicated, and reaching an equitable settlement often requires months of investigation and negotiation.
An Atlanta GA high-asset divorce lawyer has the skills and resources to manage a high net worth divorce as efficiently and discreetly as possible. Call today to discuss your divorce goals with an experienced legal professional.