In most counties in Missouri, filing a Petition for Dissolution of Marriage comes with a requirement to file a statement of property listing all marital and non-marital assets subject to division by the Court as part of the dissolution process. Both parties are required to file such statements with their affidavit and signature affirming the statement to be true and accurate. In addition to the statement of property, several counties, including St. Louis County and St. Charles County, have a mandatory document exchange rule requiring the exchange of documentation of the assets listed on the statement of property. St. Louis family attorneys often emphasize the importance of these rules, designed to reduce the need to incur discovery costs at the beginning of a case and provide each party with the same basic financial information.
However, as trust between parties entering the dissolution process is usually in short supply, it is not uncommon to have one or both spouses question the veracity of the financial information. Accusations of hiding income, moving funds, selling assets along with the general question of “how do I know what he/she really has?” are typical as a case moves forward. Unfortunately, there is no single centralized database for searching all individual assets to answer those questions. Part of the discovery process includes sending subpoenas to various financial institutions to provide account records. This process can be costly depending on how many financial institutions you want to investigate. It is important to review the financial information with your attorney to determine the most efficient way to expand discovery requests.
For this or other family law concerns, please reach out to one of the family law attorneys at Sandberg Phoenix.
