This is certainly true concerning divorce-linked family law considerations for spouses in Birmingham and surrounding Alabama communities who are terminating their marriages: Boilerplate and cookie-cutter legal representation won’t go far toward identifying issues and optimally solving challenges.
Some divorce mills and companies touting one-scenario-fits-all forms and documents promise that.
What they don’t tell people searching for accurate and helpful information is this: Every divorce is unique and solidly set off from others by distinct concerns.
And that is nowhere more apparent than in negotiations and crafted settlements involving marital asset distribution.
Candidly, what is really different about a high net worth divorce?
Suffice to say that everything is different in the details concerning a marital dissolution featuring high-valued assets.
For starters, money – specifically, significant wealth accrued over time – breeds complexity. Most divorcing couples fixate on some level of amassed assets that must be divided in divorce. Some select cases, though, notably involve multiple and varied property of such magnitude that it instantly injects complexity into the divorce process.
High-asset divorces engage the time and energies of individuals from many different occupations. Proven high net worth divorce attorneys represent clients who are business owners, investors, real estate developers, doctors, accountants and other professionals across a wide spectrum.
As noted in one in-depth legal overview of high-asset property division, those parties must frequently focus on myriad personal holdings from many different categories, including these:
- Savings vehicles ranging widely from bank accounts, retirement platforms (e.g., 401(k) and IRA accounts), mutual funds and CDs to individual stocks, inheritances, trusts and cash
- Company incentives/perks (for example, pensions, profit sharing, deferred compensation, future options and more)
- Real estate that can entail a primary residence, investment properties and other holdings
- Family business and/or professional practice
- Artwork, jewelry, cars, antiques and other collectibles/memorabilia
How does the complex asset division process unfold?
There are several discrete tasks that must be attended to en route to any equitable divorce-tied asset division.
One authoritative Alabama legal source on high net worth divorce stresses that “marital assets must first be valued accurately before property division takes place.”
And that presupposes this: a full identification of all divisible property. That can understandably be a complex undertaking in a complex divorce. Notably, spouses are not routinely forthcoming when it comes to divulging all marital wealth.
An experienced attorney-led team (sometimes including professional experts skilled in finding and valuing property) can ensure that a divorce client’s best interests are fully promoted in the dissolution process and that a fair asset division truly does occur.