You are Getting Divorced. Now What?

The very first place you will start is the financial picture of the family. What is marital property and is there any separate property? Most people are not sure, so whether you hire an attorney or work with a mediator, or even decide to do collaborative divorce, the first documents you will need to create with your attorney or a financial expert will be the statement of property and the statement of income and expenses.

You will outline everything you own together or separately and list it for the court. Even if you do a divorce process out of court, these documents need to be filed at the end. Most of the time you can figure out what the cars are worth by checking Bluebook values or what the house is worth by checking with a real estate agent in your area. Investments and retirement accounts will have a recent statement you can download for the value of those accounts.

Then you get to the business and there is just an empty space. What is the company worth? Well, if you are the business owner, you might think that the business is dependent on you, your reputation, your sales skills, even your connections in the community – so it can’t be worth anything if you are not part of the business. That may be partially true, but there is still value and the court will want a third party neutral to determine the value for the divorce.

Now over the years you have been telling your spouse how successful you have been, you have spent money on houses, cars, lavish vacations – always provided a very comfortable life for your family – so your spouse assumes the business is worth millions. I mean, that’s what you have told them over the years, why would it be any different now that you are getting divorced?

Well, some of the things we don’t tell our spouses usually have to do with debt, lines of credit and all the risks involved in making a company successful, we don’t want them to worry. So then we get the questions: Do I really need a full valuation – or can you just run some numbers? Most of the time you just need a valuation expert to help you crunch the numbers and give you a range of value for your company.

This still means we have to do the valuation analysis, review three to five years of financial data, look at the industry and economic factors, but sometimes that does not mean you need a full report. There are ways to do the analysis quickly and for a reasonable price, you just have to search a bit for the right valuation expert or accredited appraiser.

Consider working together with the valuation expert – you and your spouse. Sometimes this means that the expert presents the numbers to both of you at the same time – so no one thinks the expert is biased – or on one person’s side. The business appraiser can work with both people to explain the valuation process and determine a reasonable range of value.

This doesn’t always mean you have to be in the same room – we can present the info as a web conference call – we can even include attorneys – if you have filed for divorce and are not in mediation. We regularly testify in court regarding our opinion of value – and can support what we do with data and industry research.If you both work with the same expert to understand the range of reasonable value for the company – then you could save some time and money in the process.

It is still a process of negotiation; one person keeps the business and maybe one person keeps the house or other investments. We know that the value of the business is usually only one of many issues the couple has to face in the divorce process. Remember – your spouse is someone you may still have to co-parent with in the future – if you have kids. Or maybe you just want to have a civil divorce.

We provide divorce mediation services and valuation expert services in St. Louis, Missouri, as well as all parts of Missouri, Illinois and around the country.

If you have any questions about hiring a CDFA or the collaborative divorce process – give us a call or text your question to 314-541-8163 or check out our website at http://www.StLouisDivorceMediation.com