Goodyear, AZ High-Net-Worth Divorce Attorneys

Overview

Goodyear has grown on the back of businesses that own things. Premises, fleets, equipment, inventory. When the owners divorce, the marital estate is mostly an operating company, and an operating company does not survive being treated as a pile of assets to split.

The job is to divide the value without killing the thing generating it. Call for a free consultation.

Community or separate

A Business Started During the Marriage Is Community Property

Under A.R.S. § 25-211, property acquired during the marriage is presumed community. A company founded while married sits inside that presumption whether or not the other spouse ever worked in it, and whether or not their name appears anywhere in the filings.

A.R.S. § 25-213 keeps separate a business owned before the marriage, or one received by gift or inheritance, together with its rents, issues and profits. Where community effort or community money grew that business, though, the community can claim an interest in the growth, and in an owner-operated company the community effort is usually substantial.

When it comes to division, A.R.S. § 25-318 requires the court to return separate property and divide the community estate equitably rather than necessarily in kind. Courts are generally reluctant to leave divorcing spouses as business partners.

Valuing an operating company

Valuation, Goodwill and the Books

Valuing a closely held company is not reading the balance sheet. It means normalising the earnings, which usually means unpicking owner compensation, personal expenses run through the business, related-party rent on premises the owner also owns, and family members on payroll who may or may not work there.

Goodwill is the recurring fight. Value attached to the business itself is generally divisible. Value that exists only because of the owner personally, their relationships and their continued involvement, sits differently, and the line between the two is argued in almost every case of this kind.

Where the company owns its premises, that real estate needs its own appraisal rather than being folded into an enterprise value, particularly where the rent between the company and the owner was never set at market.

And the receivables, the equipment schedule and any personal guarantees the non-owner spouse signed all need to be on the table. A guarantee that survives the decree is a liability the decree did not divide.

If the business is to be bought out over time rather than at once, the security for those payments is the whole question. An unsecured promise from a company the other spouse now controls is not an asset, it is a hope.

How we work

How We Handle a Goodyear Business Divorce

We have acted for NFL players, professional athletes and public figures, which taught us something directly applicable here about separating the value of an enterprise from the value of one person inside it.

On a business case, what matters is that we get a forensic accountant in early where the estate justifies it, and that we ask for the records that show what the company actually earns rather than what it reports after the owner has been paid.

Tax sits underneath all of it. A.R.S. § 25-318 allows the court to weigh obligations related to property, including taxes coming due on receipt, and the shape of a buyout changes what each side keeps.