damcpa wrote:I've seen 2 similar situations in the past few years. In both cases, the wife owned a thriving business and the husband's job was to be the business manager. He handled all the business matters and she trusted him. Sometimes, the husband signed the wife's name for her on documents for property purchases in his name only. Or, he put the documents in front of her and he didn't completely explain the significance of what she was signing. In both cases, the husbands then wanted a divorce and the wife was caught totally off guard when things started coming to light. A number of things were solely in the guys' names. Yes, the wives should have been paying more attention. It was expensive to discover and settle in a divorce. I learned a big lesson about watching for early red flags with client couples.
Great perspective. I had a potential client reach out this year and I could see the red flags from the get go. Mom had built a growing bridal gown business and hired daughter to help her run it. As daughter is engaged, it just so happened that daughter's fiancée is an accountant or accounting student of some sort. Mom wanted to gift 50% of the business to daughter since daughter was helping her grow the business. I could easily see the daughter taking over and I don't think the mom saw it at all...