Hiding assets during a divorce is a serious issue that any reputable divorce attorney will warn against. While it might be tempting to somehow seek to keep your spouse from knowing or remembering about certain assets that you own, doing so is a poor decision from a legal and a moral perspective. Even if you seek to be conscientious in this regard, there's a chance that your spouse may seek to hide some assets — especially if he or she has considerably more than you. If you believe that this is going on, you should share your assumptions with your divorce lawyer. Here are some signs that your spouse is hiding assets.
He/She Claims To No Longer Have Certain Things
You might think of certain assets that you believe your spouse to have, only to continuously hear stories about him or her not having these things any longer. For example, your spouse may say, "Oh, I sold those things online years ago … didn't I tell you at the time?" Some statements of this nature may indeed be true, but if you're finding that this sentiment comes up frequently, it may be a sign that your spouse is hiding some assets.
He/She Is Secretive About Financial Statements
When a divorce is underway, both you and your spouse may with to divulge less to each other than you did previously. However, there's a line that neither of you should cross relating to assets. If your spouse was always open about his or her financial statements, but now is keeping them locked in a safe, shredding them, or otherwise preventing you from seeing them, you should have a reasonable expectation that he or she may have hidden assets.
He/She Gets A Storage Locker
It's possible for your spouse to physically hide assets from you by taking them out of the house and putting them into a storage locker. You might not necessarily know that your spouse has a storage locker if he or she doesn't tell you, but certain things could give it away. For example, someone from the storage company could call your house and leave a message. Or, perhaps someone you know were to run into your spouse at the storage facility. If he or she is being evasive about the use of storage, it may be because he or she is using the storage space for the goal of hiding assets.
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