Marital assets can get complicated during a divorce. Couples are supposed to split up the things that they own together. These could include tangible assets like a house and financial assets like a bank account.
There are two different ways in which people will sometimes try to keep their spouse from getting their fair share. These are known as dissipating and hiding marital assets. They do accomplish similar goals, but they are done much differently.
Hiding the assets
Hiding assets is very common, and it essentially just means that the person is trying to remove those assets from the marital estate. Maybe they gave $10,000 to their brother, for instance. They will then fail to disclose this money to the court – since their brother owns it – and it won’t get divided during the divorce. After that divorce is finalized, their brother will give them the money back.
Other tactics include creating fake expenses, buying items that could be undervalued, overpaying taxes or other bills, and much more.
Dissipating assets
On the other hand, dissipating assets just means spending them in a way that is outside of the norm. Everyone has to spend to some degree during a divorce because it takes months. But if one spouse is frivolously spending as much as possible, they may just think that it will be easier for them to earn the money back after the divorce. If they spend it early, that keeps the money from going to their spouse.
If you are concerned that your spouse is going to hide or dissipate assets during your divorce, make sure you’re well aware of your legal options.