How do I get my spouse’s
financial information?
Before you file
for divorce, you should gather all of your financial information. This is often made more difficult if your
spouse has been hiding financial records r ahs his/her own bank account. Do the best you can even if all you can get
is an account number. This will help to
track down financial records. You should
also take pictures of any valuable items that could be disposed of so that
there is a record of their existence.
Utah law requires
that each spouse submit a form Financial Declaration to the other spouse and
the Court. This document is used to
determine income for child support and for temporary alimony. Permanent alimony is determined by either
agreement or mediation. A Financial Declaration
is basically a financial snap shot of your income, expenses, debts, and assets
at the time you complete it. Do not
include your future projected income or expected debts or assets. The information needs to be correct as of the
date you sign it.
The Financial
Declaration and all its attachments (discussed below) must be mailed to your
spouse or your spouse’s attorney (if they have one) within 14 days after your
spouse files an answer to the petition (if you filed the petition) or 28 days
from the date your spouse sent you his/her Financial Declaration (if your
spouse filed the petition). The
Financial Declaration will need to be filed with the Court as well.
Be honest! The Court will review it and make sure that
the numbers are realistic and make sense.
I have seen people claim that they spend hundreds on makeup and clothes
each month even though they were individuals of modest means. The Court was not happy and adjusted the
Financial Declaration.
To verify income,
you are required to provide:
·
your taxes for the prior 2 years with W2s, Form
1099s, Form K-1s
·
pay stubs for the previous 12 months
·
loan application or other financial statements that
you prepared in last 12 months
·
deeds or other documents showing ownership interest
in real estate along with a tax valuation or appraisal (if you have one). If you do not have an appraisal, you need not
get one.
·
bank statements, credit card statements, loan
statements for the 3 months before the petition was filed. For example, if the petition was filed in
April, you will need statements for January, February, and March.
If you do not have these documents or cannot get them in time to file
the Financial Declaration, you can explain in paragraph 13 of the Financial
Declaration why you do not have the documents.
On all of these documents, you will want to remove you social security numbers
(expect the last 4 digits) and account numbers (expect the last 4 digits) to
protect your privacy. These documents
are not public records, but caution should be taken. Typically you only need file the pay stubs
and tax returns with the Court.
What if you are
self-employed? Self-employed cases
(which occur frequently in Utah) tend to be the most contested because “income”
is often categorized as a business expense.
If you pay yourself a salary, you list that and then prorate any bonus
you receive at the end of the year over 12 months. If you do not pay yourself a salary, you
would list the business income and then add in expenses of the business to the
expense section.
You will also need
to take care in showing your monthly expenses.
Many people find it difficult to quantify the amounts they spend each
month on laundry, clothing, entertainment, gas, etc. because these amounts
fluctuate. You are required to do some
basic research on amounts you typically spend and make an educated
estimate. You can also take an amount
that is spent only once or twice a year (such as clothes) and divide that over
12 months. For instance, if you spend
$600 a year on clothes on average, you can put down $50 per month on
cloths. If your children have school
fees and other expenses of $600 each September, you can put down $50 per
month. It is critical that you put these
amounts down even though they occur only once or twice a year. For expenses, it is okay to make an educated
guess. Paragraph 13 allows you to list
the item you estimated and explain why you estimated it as such. However, there must be a basis for the estimate.
If your spouse is
not honest on the Financial Declaration, the Utah rules allow you to send
him/her discovery requests asking for specific types of documents and account numbers. When these are obtained, a subpoena can be
sent directly to the bank or company and they are required to send you the
documents that you requested. This is a
great power to even the playing field with a dishonest spouse.
Contact Attorney Drew for more information www.attorneydrew.com
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