Avondale, AZ High-Net-Worth Divorce Attorneys

Overview

Not every substantial estate looks like one. A couple with four rental doors, a contracting business and a good deal of equity is holding real wealth, but the records behind it are often a shoebox and a memory.

That is a fixable problem if it is fixed early. Call for a free consultation and bring whatever you have.

Community or separate

What Is Community, and Who Has to Prove It

Under A.R.S. § 25-211, anything acquired during the marriage is presumed community property. The presumption does the heavy lifting, because the spouse claiming an asset is separate carries the burden of showing it.

A.R.S. § 25-213 protects property owned before the marriage or received by gift, devise or descent, along with its rents, issues and profits. A rental bought before the wedding starts separate. Where community income paid the mortgage, funded the improvements or covered the taxes for a decade, the community can acquire an interest in the equity built during that period.

On division, A.R.S. § 25-318 has the court assign separate property back and divide the community equitably, though not necessarily in kind, without regard to marital misconduct.

Disclosure and records

These Cases Are Decided at Disclosure

Where a business is run out of a personal account and rentals are managed without formal statements, the case turns on reconstructing the finances rather than on any legal argument.

That means bank records rather than summaries, tax returns with all schedules, closing statements for every property, and an honest account of cash income if there is any. A spouse who understates income at disclosure and is caught later loses more than the money, because credibility is difficult to rebuild in front of the same judge who will decide everything else.

On the other side, a spouse who has not been involved in the finances should not accept the other side’s summary of what exists. Bank statements, deeds and returns are obtainable, and the gap between what is claimed and what the records show is often where the real estate is.

For rentals we look at the acquisition date, the source of the deposit, who serviced the debt and what improvements were funded from where. That is the evidence that decides how much of the equity is community.

Depreciation already claimed on rental property is the quiet item in these settlements. It reduces basis, which increases the tax on an eventual sale, and a spouse taking the rentals rather than the cash is taking that liability with them.

How we work

How We Handle an Avondale Property and Business Divorce

We have acted for NFL players, professional athletes and public figures. For an Avondale client the transferable skill is narrower and more useful, which is reconstructing income from bank records when the tax return does not tell the story.

For an Avondale client the relevant part is more practical. We are willing to do the reconstruction work on estates where nobody kept clean books, and we would rather find the problems in month one than have opposing counsel find them at trial.

We also weigh tax before agreeing anything, since A.R.S. § 25-318 allows the court to consider obligations tied to property including taxes falling due on receipt, and rental property carries built-in gain that an even split can quietly allocate to one side.