If bank accounts are only in your spouse's name, or if he or she has separate business bank accounts, your lawyer may request a subpoena for bank records. You have other options for obtaining financial information besides waiting for your spouse to turn it in. In a divorce, either spouse can directly send a subpoena to third parties with financial information relevant to the case. A “duces tecum subpoena” requires the third party recipient to serve the documents.
Attorneys routinely send these subpoenas to banks, credit card companies, retirement account managers, and other financial account holders. Subpoenas can be enforced by going to court. You can file a motion with the court to compel your spouse to provide the requested material. The judge will review the summons and, if you meet the legal requirements, will issue an order for your spouse to serve the papers.
If your spouse does not comply with the court order, the judge can declare you in contempt and order you to pay a fine or go to jail. Banks and other businesses must respond to every subpoena they receive, regardless of whether or not they have the requested documents or records. If there are no documents for a specific period of time, the organization must alert the requesting law firm in writing. If the cited documents can be submitted, the institution will send all the requested items to the law firm.
Rule 45 allows one spouse to request records from outside persons or entities, other than parties, such as banks or employers. However, there are limits to the power of subpoena, and a party cannot use subpoenas as a substitute for the disclosure and discovery rules described above. In addition, the citation rules are very strict to prevent the subpoena spouse from abusing the power of the citation. In Illinois, where I practice, subpoenas are issued by an attorney or the court clerk.
An examination of the citation will show how the citation was issued. Our experience is that, typically, a bank will notify the account holder when a subpoena is issued on an account. Since you did not know that the bank released the records, a query to the bank about what happened may be justified. This video and article will explain what you can do if your spouse refuses to cooperate with the discovery of divorce.
Reviewers can be anyone who consults or hires an attorney, including in-house counsel, corporate executives, small business owners, and individuals. If you can't find any documentation, ask your lawyer for a list of all the documentation that may be relevant to your case. To find marital property hidden in a Florida divorce, you must first find, compel, and gather all relevant financial documentation related to your spouse. For example, either party may obtain credit card statements, receipts, bank statements, canceled checks and other documents related to the other party's finances by request to the other party or by subpoena.
However, what happens if your spouse or the person who is not part of the party does not comply with the summons? How can you enforce a subpoena for financial records in the event of a divorce?. The discovery phase of divorce, as well as settlement negotiations, can be complicated and will benefit from the attention of an experienced lawyer. We call this “self-help discovery” because you can help your own cause and put your divorce lawyer in the best position possible to succeed. While most documents or records are free to be cited by either party, some items are confidential and prohibited in a divorce action.
The most important component of creating a winning divorce strategy is hiring a team of experienced lawyers to handle the nuances of your divorce case for you. It was presented at a hearing with all my financial statements from my personal checking account, which she obtained by filing subpoenas for herself without alerting my lawyer. In a financial divorce, a divorce lawyer has access to three to five years (or more) of bank and credit card statements, including those in a custodial account. During a divorce proceeding, or in a post-decree amendment proceeding, issues relating to a spouse's income or property are often disputed, especially when one spouse suspects that the other spouse is hiding income or assets from him.
Your divorce lawyer will hire an investigator who can follow the trail of money, your spouse's habit while traveling and on vacation, and will use similar means to find out hidden assets. If you have additional questions about obtaining financial information from a spouse during your divorce, you should contact a local family law attorney for advice. . .
