Hey everybody

Hi all, Does divorce have to be that bad, I am separated from my wife cos she says she no longer loves me and wants to find love again. (which she has now..5 weeks after she left me, make of that what you will )
I am concerned as I am a partner in a business and I am worried that my wife has legal rights over my business when we divorce. We have just started discussing how to divide everything, I actually want to buy her out of our home and asked her to name her price. Can she touch my business even though she has never taken any part in it? Any help would be great.

Hello Billy

Quick question how long were you married do you have kids if so how many and thier age/s

I was married for 22yrs my kids are 18 & 21 both students. Thanks for your reply

Due to the long marriage then essentially all of your assets (house, savings, pensions, value of your business) are totalled up and included in the martial pot to be divided fairly between you.

The actual split varies based on the details of your financial situation, but she would be entitled to a fair split - so something in the region of a 50:50 split is quite possible.

Thanks for your input....If she is entitled to half of my half of the business I may have to try and sell my business to pay her therefore putting me unemployed..Is that right or fair and will the courts allow that to happen?

Again this all depends on circumstances but...it would be more normal that you keep the business intact but to balance she keeps more equity from the house.

There is a danger to this, see this recent case !

Pretty grim huh!?

One key factor though is 'valuing' the business.

Large established business can be fairly accurately valued based on audited accounts and cashflow forecasts etc

Smaller business and especially ones that rely heavily on the continued efforts of the person getting divorced are much harder to put a capital value on.

For example a self-employed plumber, the courts are less likely to try to assign some capital value to the business (because when you take away the plumber himself the business may actual not be worth anything) and instead will just consider the income generate by the business when deciding on maintenance etc.

The bigger they are the harder they fall eh?

Bit of a rum do indeed!