Your spouse filed for divorce. You weren’t really that surprised, and you hoped it could be a low-conflict divorce. Then you checked your bank accounts.
The day before filing, your spouse withdrew $100,000 from one of the accounts. When you ask them about it, they tell you that they just remembered an old debt to their brother, which they had been meaning to pay off for years. Their brother is going through a tough financial time, so they decided to do it. No big deal.
Except, it may be a huge deal. Transferring money to family members and friends is one of the main ways people attempt to hide assets. Is that debt even real? Did your spouse ever borrow the money? Or did they just make that up as an excuse when they got caught? It could be that the plan is to wait for the divorce to end and then have the brother give the money back. You know a portion of that money should go to you, but now your ex gets all of it.
Plus, the fact that it was transferred so close to the divorce filing is definitely a red flag. With just a day between them, your spouse definitely knew they were about to file for divorce when they decided to “pay” that old debt.
When things like this begin to crop up, high-asset divorce cases grow very complicated. You need to make sure that you are well aware of all of your legal rights and the steps you can take to protect them, especially if your spouse is trying to do anything illegal with marital assets.
