Hi Everyone,

I'm not officially part of the "After Divorce" crowd but am working my way in your direction. It's good to be able to read your posts and see that there is life beyond divorce.

Anyhow, I'm hoping maybe someone over here might have had some experience or knowledge of forensic accountants. My attorney is pushing me to hire one, who is known to be good but very expensive.

I'm currently a stay at home mom and my husband has his own business. This business has been in existance for over fourteen years. It's said value (according to H )
fluctuates greatly depending on how we're doing; as in together or not. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/crazy.gif" alt="" />

So... any advice concerning accountants would be appreciated. Thanks in advance!

Hi there! I don't personally have experience with a forensic accountant (I had to pay my husband when I divorced him) but I had a client that used one. She too was a stay at home Mom, her husband a big business owner with a huge salary, etc. Her husband got into drugs, women, etc., and started spending $$ like water. She hired this firm (hugely expensive) and they spent lots of billable hours tracking down the fact that he spent pretty much every last dime.....So, she got stuck with big bills, and got nothing. This, of course, is an extreme story.....

Thanks Truly,

I appreciate the story. It's stories like that one that scare me. I'm concerned about having the same thing happen here. I need to just give it a lot of thought and prayer.
Thanks for sharing.

Hi Leah, My XH and I owned and operated a business together until he got back into drugs, alcohol, and other women. I am now running the business alone. I have a forensic accountant. Yes, he's expensive, but he has been an incredible help to me in protecting my financial security. He understands a lot of the issues in ways my lawyer doesn't. He has also helped educate me about the issues, which has been very empowering.

Thanks Lets Try,

That's great that your accountant has been able to educate you on the issues. That would make it a much more valuable investment for me. Unfortunately, the man my attorney wants to hire is over two hours away. I'm hoping I can find someone that's local and more accessible. Thanks for taking time to respond.

I met with one, but decided the cost would not justify the results (in my case). I helped my X with the books for his business, so I had access to information, and we had our joint tax returns. So I created excel spreadsheets showing historical income statements and cross checked those against the tax returns. (So I knew how much the business had grown over the years and what growth I could project). I had these papers when I met with the accountant. He gave me some great measures on which to base my valuation.
Like return on revenues/sales for different business types. You can find these in some accounting books.

Now, I didn't really want X's business, I just came up with what I thought was a fair value and traded it for his equity in my retirement funds. I likely undervalued, but the time/effort wasn't worth it to me.
X did try to say his salary was 1/3 of what he had reported on the income tax returns. So I had to get him to impute a salary to himself from the business. It was less than I wanted, but we negotiated that piece in the courthouse the day of the divorce. (I can laugh now, but X hadn't given me his tax statements by our court date. I told my lawyer, unless X walked into court with the taxes, we were walking out. So I had 15 minutes to review the taxes before court).
Depending on the size of the business, the business purchases that can be written off immediately versus amortized can really impact the financial statements.

My suggestion, do some digging on your own, and see if you can get comfortable with the numbers, then meet with an accountant for help.

Good luck.

Hi Newly,

I just responded to your other post over in divorce/divorcing. Thanks for taking the time to post twice. You've given a lot of food for thought. I must confess I'm not a business person, so I'm kind of lost with some of what you wrote. I'm currently trying to educate myself with a lot of this stuff. There is much to learn!

My H has not wanted my involvement in his business- in more ways than one. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smirk.gif" alt="" /> So, there is much that is unknown in all of this, which makes it so difficult to try to come up with what seems fair as far as a settlement goes.

I think the business value is so subjective. It can be valued so many different ways with so many different possible outcomes. That is when I think I might need a forensic accountant to sort through all of it. But, we shall see. Thanks again for your input.