What Information Must You Disclose in a Divorce?

Early on in your divorce, you will go through the process of “discovery,” in which you, your spouse and your attorneys gather as much information as you can. During this process, you will need to make some mandatory disclosures. This is information you are required to provide by law.

Before mandatory disclosure rules existed, divorcing spouses had to serve formal discovery requests for all the documents and information needed for their cases. However, just about every divorce requires the exchange of information, such as asset ownership, income and debts, so having these mandatory disclosures in place cuts down on time that would otherwise be wasted on requesting this information.

Information reporting requirements

You will always be required to provide certain pieces of financial information. For example, spouses must list all their assets and debts and the values of each of them. You might also be required to list your work history, salary history, job titles and employer names, along with educational history and degrees or certificates achieved.

If you own any property that is separate (rather than marital) property, you will need to list these items in addition to explanations of why each is considered separate property. If you will be asserting a separate property claim, you will need to do a full tracing to prove that the funds came from a separate property asset. You also must provide information regarding all insurance policies you own (separately or jointly), the names of the providers and the policy numbers.

If you and your spouse have children, you will likely need to disclose child-related expenses, such as childcare, private school tuition and expenses associated with extracurricular activities and camps.

Finally, you must provide documents like tax returns, mortgage balance statements, bank statements, other tax documents and income statements, loan applications, Social Security and federal benefit payments and any other documents that provide evidence about owned assets and wealth.

For further information about mandatory disclosures, consult an experienced Long Island divorce lawyer with Jakubowski, Robertson, Maffei, Goldsmith & Tartaglia, LLP.