When a couple decides to get a divorce and one or both of them owns a business, the process is going to be a lot more complicated. Businesses can be a major point of contention between divorcing spouses, with questions over ownership, valuation, and other important issues that need to be resolved.
When business owners divorce, it is definitely not a straightforward process, but this does not necessarily mean you have to litigate the case. You can effectively resolve the issues related to a family-owned or closely held business through mediation, as long as you work with a mediation service that has extensive experience with these types of cases and an in-depth understanding of the complexities involved.
On the other hand, if both spouses hire attorneys, things can become very expensive, and the process could drag out for an extended period of time. With this traditional approach, each spouse will typically hire their own forensic accountant. The forensic accountants go to work performing their own analyses and producing their findings, then they negotiate between the two findings and try to work out a compromise.
In this excellent blog posting, Roseann Vanella offers a guide on how to work through the complexities business owners face, so you can develop a peaceable and workable settlement that all parties can agree to.