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Divorce cases become even more complicated when there are business interests (on top of property and children) that exist between the two spouses.

We’ve dealt with one such case, where the husband ran a successful catering business that he had dutifully declared the value of in his list of assets. However, the problem was that the wife thought the declared amount was far too low and it didn’t reflect accurately the true monetary value of the business.

We were brought in as the jointly instructed expert by the firms of solicitors representing both wife and husband, to accurately value the husband’s business – taking in to account all factors that were put to us in evidence, in support of their respective positions.

The wife felt that the accounts deliberately omitted large amounts of cash takings that she knew the business had generated and she felt it had not been included in the business turnover. She also wanted us to investigate considerable private expenditure taken out of the business by the husband.

The husband brought to our attention his unique role in the business in that in his opinion, he was the business and the sole reason for the success of the business over the years, and if he was not there, the business had little value.

We prepared an expert report taking the submissions from husband and wife in to account, our own expertise in interpersonal relationships between spouses, and our expertise in valuing these types of business. We further researched and established how marketable these businesses are. We then provided a value for the business in a report suitable for use in Court.

This value was accepted by both sides and this aspect of the divorce was brought to a fair conclusion.