Divorce action is always complicated, often entailing the unwinding of a number of years of inextricably linked lives, emotions, and, significantly, finances. Open and full disclosure by each party of all assets and liabilities is one of the basic tenets of divorce family law. This provides equal and equitable division of property during marriage as under law like Kenya’s Matrimonial Property Act, 2013. In other cases, however, a spouse might desire an unfair benefit by hiding assets. This deceit is extremely grave and could radically change the direction and way of a divorce case.
The Breach of Trust and Legal Duty
When a spouse goes out of their way to conceal property upon divorce, they are not only cheating the trust of their soon-to-be-ex-spouse but also failing in an important duty to the court. Kenyan courts, as most others, expect both parties to provide complete disclosure of finances, usually witnessed by a “Statement of Truth” or an affidavit to verify the accuracy of the amounts. Willfully providing false information or concealing information that is material under oath will be perjury, a criminal offense with grave possible legal consequences.
This asset concealment is counter to the very notion of fair division of assets, which is that both parties have an equal exit from the marriage with roughly the same amount of money that they entered into the marriage with. It can take anything from concealing money, transferring money to family members or friends, creating shell companies, reducing income, or failing to report offshore accounts and investments.
The Unraveling of Concealment: Revealing Hidden Assets
Even for a spouse who believes he or she is crafty, there usually is a chink somewhere in the armor through the investigation. Family lawyers are well aware of how to search for red flags, such as last-minute increases in spending, suspicious transfers of sizeable funds, or a resistant spouse regarding producing some financial documents.
Forensic accountants are most commonly engaged in celebrity divorces where suspected concealment of assets exists. These specialists examine carefully financial documents like bank records, tax returns, business books, and credit card charges for discrepancies and money movement. They can identify patterns of underreported income, hidden accounts, or money paid to other parties. Courts can force financial institutions and others to disclose, which again assists the discovery process. Though virtual wealth such as cryptocurrency has gained popularity, there also emerged new ways of hiding it and new ways of its detection, but forensic accounting can detect them too.
The Radical Consequences of Discovery
The revelation of hidden assets is severe and not favorable to the offending spouse. Their believability in court is lost irretrievably to begin with. Judges do not have a very good opinion of perjury and fraud on the court, and this can actually result in the innocent spouse’s right to more of the share proportionate to the revealed marital assets as a penalty.
Besides monetary fines, the spouse who has been concealing assets will face severe legal consequences. For example, they can be brought to contempt of court, where they would be punished with fines or, in the worst scenarios, jail time. The court may also “set aside” any prior order or settlement won if the latter was secured by fraudulent misrepresentation of finances so that such division of assets can be changed and reallocated on true financial fact. Criminal prosecution for fraud or perjury is also a very likely possibility with a criminal record as the punishment.
Conclusion
Concealing property in divorce is a dangerous thing that hardly pays and will always have more calamitous economic and legal repercussions than dishonesty. Agonizingly bitter as divorce makes some individuals become untruthful, the Kenyan judiciary, with its strict disclosure requirement and inquiry mechanism, is made to act fairly. Transparency and disclosure of compliance are not just a legal matter but also the secret to the even-handed resolution and the best means of an extensive, more costly, and ultimately more devastating court battle.
