Divorce Asset Searching – A Big Return on a Small Investment

Would you be willing to invest $4,000 dollars if there were a decent chance of getting $50,000 back within six months?

See if this is you or someone you know:

• A professional woman who has been off work for a number of years taking care of children, or else married and still working full time;
• Married to a man with his own business – be it a regional heating and cooling operation with 100 employees or a top producer selling insurance and investment products at a big firm;
• Somewhat aware of how the husband’s business is structured, but not certain that she knows every company within the business group;
• Aware that the couple owns three properties, but has no idea whether they are personally held or held in the name of a side company.

That person is someone who could benefit from an asset search. You don’t need to think your spouse has sent money to a Caribbean trust. Sometimes, a map of what you and your spouse own versus what you think you own can be very valuable.

Consider what we have found over the past year:

• A husband who dabbled in crypto currency set up his own website (which we linked to him) with some $3 million worth of crypto coins.
• A husband’s “$100,000 cabin” in the northwest was really worth $800,000.
• A home in Hawaii wasn’t owned by the couple after all. It had been purchased by the husband with marital funds through a company and then transferred to his mother for $1.

Divide the findings by two (for your half of the marital asset), and that is your return on investment. Remember that $4,000 to get $50,000 within six months? That’s a return of more than 1,000%. The extra $700,000 on the “cabin” above yields even more. But even if I found a $45,000 boat slip and you get half of that value, (another true story from within the last year), your rate of return is still 462%.

Not everyone getting divorced needs an asset survey, but rarely can a small amount of money yield so much in such a short time.