A frequent problem when taking in a new asset search in divorce is figuring out how far back to look.
Clients in divorce usually know a lot more about their spouse than anyone else, at least when it comes to daily habits, close friends, and other bits of information that can inform our asset search.
Half the time when someone calls our office about asset identification they tell us, “I need bank account information.”
When told that without a court order there is nearly no legal way to get that kind of information from a bank without the account holder’s consent, many ask: “If it’s illegal, why did an investigator
At some point with nearly every asset search our firm conducts, we end up telling clients that finding assets is often more than a one-step process.
The one step some people think we need to take is to consult some databases, and voila! A pot of gold they can easily seize.
While there have been
Nearly ten years on since the arrest of master Ponzi schemer Bernard Madoff, the Ponzi fraudsters are still with us. Maybe not with as much money as Madoff’s billions, but powerful enough to do a lot of damage.
Being devoted to finding assets, this blog doesn’t usually talk about ways to lose them. But we
Finding assets can be satisfying work, but frustration sometimes comes in realizing that a client’s lawyers haven’t been asking the right questions in their depositions.
We have written repeatedly that getting bank account information without a court order is illegal (other than discovering it on a shared computer or in records lying around). When we
I was interviewed at length today for the #1 podcast on divorce planning, Divorce and Your Money. Among the detailed points covered:
What’s wrong with using a forensic accountant in your hunt for a spouse’s hidden assets? Nothing, provided you hand that accountant all the pertinent information you can. We’ve mentioned the need for these professionals frequently on our site, and this Forbes article by Jeffrey Landers explains similar reasoning.
The problem with forensic accountants can be
This week, the U.K. Supreme Court is reviewing the cases of Alison Sharland and Varsha Gohil to determine whether a spouse can reopen a divorce case in instances of fraud or misrepresentation after the parties have reached a settlement agreement.
Sharland contends that her husband misled her into believing that his software company was worth
In an unusual move for a divorce case, a Queens judge added Benny Tal’s business partners as defendants in Benny’s divorce action because the three men had colluded to hide Benny’s assets from his wife Michal. As Michal told the New York Post, “It’s like a dirty soap opera. There’s so much fraud going
Grandchildren of the late Judge Leander Perez, a segregationist political boss who ruled Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana from the twenties until his death in 1968, recently filed a so-called “legacy lawsuit” against several large oil companies for allegedly polluting land on which the family held mineral rights. The glaring problem with the plaintiffs’ case is that