What is a High Net Worth Divorce?

Hello and welcome to 60 Seconds with Sergio. I am your host, Sergio Cabanas, Attorney-at-Law here in Florida. Thank you for joining me today.

Today’s question is: “Sergio, what exactly is a high net worth divorce or a high asset divorce and is that any different than any other divorce?

Well, let me start by saying this: a famous rapper said it best when he said ‘more money, more problems’. That was true in life and that’s certainly, specially true, in divorce.

A high net worth divorce, or a high asset divorce, is usually defined as any divorce involving assets that exceed about a million dollars.

It often times involves a prenuptial or a postnuptial agreement where the lawyer has to litigate whether or not certain agreement is valid or not.

So, normally there are 6 features that separates a high asset divorce or a high net worth divorce from all the other divorces.

One of them is the amount of money involved in a divorce. If it’s more than a million dollars, it’s usually a high net worth divorce.

Number 2. Usually these divorces involve the validity of a prenuptial or a postnuptial agreement, where one of the parties try to enforce the agreement against the other to gain an advantage in the divorce.

The third feature often involves finding the marital assets. This is a big issue, which is very common in these high net worth divorce cases. Sometimes, one or both spouses are hiding assets from the other. Sometimes through their businesses, sometimes through other friends and family.

Sometimes this requires a forensic accountant to actually review all the financial paperwork in order to find all of the assets.

The fourth feature is, even when the assets are found we have to determine whether they are nonmarital and therefore not subject to division in a divorce, versus marital assets, which are subject to division and distribution between the spouses.

The fifth feature involves determining the value of any particular asset involved in a divorce.

For example, we may have to value the worth of a business, or some other important asset. In order to be able to finalize a divorce in a fair and equitable way. And the final, sixth feature is being able to make a distribution of the assets to the parties, in a way that minimizes tax liability.

We call that ‘tax impacting’. From a divorce law perspective, these financial features have a huge impact in any given divorce. For example, it can control how much money you may end up having to receive or pay for child support.

It would determine how much money you’ll have to pay or receive when the assets are distributed. And, of course, how much you’ll have to pay or receive by way of alimony.

The bottom line, the final takeaway in this short message is the fact that people that have high net worth divorce usually have a lot more at risk.

So Sergio’s takeaway message for this short video is the people who are facing a high net worth or a high asset divorce have to take important steps because they have more at risk to lose than in any other divorce.

The three takeaways here are: To find and control those assets and finally, get yourself a good lawyer. I hope this short video provided you some general guidance over a very important area of the law involving high net worth divorce.

Of course, this is not a substitute for an actual consultation with an attorney who can review the specifics of your case.

Thank you again for joining me today. As always, stay informed so you can stay strong.