In cases involving complex property issues, our firm is particularly well suited.
Handling the dissolution of a complex estate requires experience and expertise. Estates involving businesses, trusts, real estate, or intellectual property will also involve thorny legal issues and long-term financial considerations. In these cases, inexperience on the part of the lawyer can have high short and long-term financial consequences.
Separate & Community Property
In every case, your lawyer will first need to assess whether an item of property belongs to the spouses as community property, or belongs to one spouse as their separate property. Although the laws of community property and separate property may seem straight forward at first, the task of designating separate property and proving it can become complicated in a hurry. And when trusts or business entities are involved, even the most experienced lawyers, mediators and judges can disagree on the outcome. This is where experience and expertise really counts.
The Role of Experts
With any complex estate, one or more experts will almost always be needed to aid the divorce attorney in characterizing, valuing, and otherwise understanding the various assets and interests involved in the client’s estate. In these cases is critical for a lawyer to have cultivated relationships with experts from various disciplines who can be ready to provide assitance as needed.
Entity Litigation
Business entities and trusts can be very helpful in advancing the interests of a marital estate. But they can also present serious challenges when dissolving it. When a significant portion of the wealth of an estate is held by one or more entities, experience on the part of the attorneys dealing with the dissolution of the estate is critical to a successful outcome for the client.
If you are thinking about or faced with a divorce involving an estate of any complexity, please feel free to call us at one of the numbers above to set up a consultation. We will take the time to carefully assess your estate and all of the issues involved. In the end, we hope that we can put your mind at ease by outlining a sensible course of action.
