Charlotte High Asset Divorce Lawyer

One of the most important aspects of preparing for divorce in Charlotte is creating your financial disclosure statement. This is a firm requirement for every divorce and includes the divorcing spouse’s financial records. In a high-asset divorce, this is likely to be very difficult to create without an experienced attorney’s help. It is vital to be complete and accurate in your financial disclosure statement, and any hiding of assets can have severe repercussions.

Your financial disclosure statement must include all of your financial records, such as bank statements, investment account reports, cryptocurrency holding statements, real estate ownership records, and business records if you are a business owner or partner. These records must show a history of property ownership, the income you have earned during your marriage, and the details of any assets or liabilities acquired during your marriage.

In the event that you suspect your spouse has hidden assets, you must discuss these concerns with your attorney immediately. They will know how to uncover any such hidden assets, and if it is proven that your spouse knowingly lied in their financial disclosure statement, they may not only face severe penalties like contempt of court, but this could also lead to a more favorable outcome for you in several ways.

Equitable Distribution in Divorce Cases

North Carolina is one of many US states to uphold an equitable distribution law for property division. This means that all marital property must be divided “equitably” or as fairly as possible. This does not necessarily mean that each spouse will receive exactly half of their shared marital assets. Additionally, distinctions must be made between marital property controlled by both spouses and each spouse’s separate property.

Separate property typically includes anything a spouse personally owned prior to their marriage, such as a house, their vehicle, gifts they have received, and inheritance from other family members. Marital property generally includes anything either spouse acquired during their marriage, including the income both spouses earned while married. Defining marital property can sometimes lead to difficult disputes in high-asset divorce cases.

Your Charlotte high-asset divorce lawyer can help you complete the financial disclosure process and accurately identify all of the marital property and separate property that must be considered during your proceedings. Under the equitable distribution law, each spouse may take shares of certain assets, or some assets may be liquidated, and the proceeds divided between the spouses as equitably as possible.

Many divorcing couples throughout the state take advantage of alternative dispute resolution when possible to save time and money on legal expenses. When a divorce unfolds through litigation, it can be an expensive and time-consuming process for both spouses. Alternative dispute resolution, such as mediation and collaborative divorce procedures, can potentially allow them to reach more mutually agreeable results as long as they are both willing to compromise.

During alternative dispute resolution, the divorcing spouses and their respective attorneys meet privately to negotiate terms for their divorce. When it comes to property division in a high-asset divorce case, this affords an opportunity to customize the division of property, and it is possible for the spouses to reach a mutually acceptable determination more quickly than they could through litigation. In a negotiated settlement, your skilled high asset divorce attorney can help fashion a resolution that, by agreement, can be more flexible and cover more contingencies than a court may be willing or able to provide.

While the court ultimately has the authority and the obligation to decide what is in the best interests of the children in divorce, the court generally defers to the parents in determining those issues, when they can agree. When the parents cannot agree, the court ultimately will be required to decide those issues. However, all issues involved in a high asset divorce, including child-related issues such as child custody and child support, can be resolved privately through various negotiation methods, including mediation and collaborative divorce procedures. Your high asset divorce attorney is not only skilled in litigating of these issues, but has long experience negotiating child custody and support issues. Many times, negotiating these issues outside of a court process can save time, money and be beneficial to the parent-child relationship.

It is also possible for the couple’s high net worth to make other issues, such as alimony determination, more challenging. The purpose of alimony is to provide financial support to a divorcing spouse who does not have the same financial flexibility as the other spouse. Alimony aims to help them maintain the same standard of living as they had while married while they adjust to their new lifestyle.

When one spouse is awarded alimony, the amount they receive will vary based on their needs and the financial differences between the spouses, and these payments will typically continue for half the length of time that the marriage lasted. However, it is possible for a divorcing spouse to be disqualified from receiving alimony if they engaged in any marital misconduct while married, such as adultery, abuse, or wasting marital assets.