Everyone can be intuitive and foresee impending divorce, here is how to spot a spouse’s intentions and be warned, - you need wealth protection strategies. This is the first of a series of articles detailing how to spot a forthcoming divorce, how to do pre divorce planning and how to handle the divorce itself. As an International Asset Protection and Divorce Strategist working in both Europe and the U.S. I have secretly advised some of the highest profile business executives helping them save millions in the divorce process.
My clients are intelligent; not just because they use me, that goes without saying, but because they are at the top of the business food-chain. They often run multi-million dollar businesses, or family empires; they are creators of wealth, generals in charge of business legions. In the stress of personal unhappiness my clients wonder whether they are “paranoid” thinking their marriage is heading down the tube. Usually I am advising them about issues of asset protection and various wealth protection strategies and they are beginning to wonder is it all necessary; maybe they were just being “paranoid”? I usually ask some questions to find out why they feel things are not going well. Generally I find a client’s intuitive judgement is generally correct; it is a truism for good reason; there is rarely smoke without fire!.

Here are five tell-tale signs that things are not as they should be.

1) Attention changes. Either the spouse pays you more attention due to guilt or else seems to find fault with you, because they try to justify the affair in their mind.

2) Sex changes; this can be less interest in sex or indeed occasionally more interest.

3) Money changes. Try and keep a check on where the money goes; if they are more cautious with spending, it is often because there are additional expenses you don’t know about. Sometimes they start spending far more than previously on certain outgoings. This may mean they have received legal advice and be increasing their “financial needs”. This is your spouse doing their little bit of pre divorce planning.

4) Personal changes; watch out for habit changes in gym attendance, new clothes in the cupboard - but not used for you! New this or that, indeed any significant change of routine can signify a change of of object of desire.

5) Phone changes. Maybe they whisper on the phone and abruptly change voice tone or hang up when you come into the room. Check their mobile account, especially calls made to the same number after leaving for work or just before coming back from work.

As you will have noticed all of these are behavioural changes of one form or another, because when a person knows their personal relationship is wrong their behaviour changes. Emotional detachment signifies a lot. Avoiding communication or indeed unusual communication can signify that the relationship is not on course. When they avoid either connection to you or from their obligations as a spouse and start prioritising their needs and desires and behaving as if it is purely their life and they want to live it their own way rather than with you, then break-up will follow. Sometimes a spouse will accuse you of having an affair as a way of distracting attention from themselves

When you discover some of these changes do not confront your spouse as this will only mean they adjust their behaviour and make it more difficult for you to keep track of what they are doing. To the same degree that your spouse’s behaviour has changed because they know they are turning their back on their relationship with you, so you must make sure that your behaviour does not change to alert them to your suspicions. Instead, keep things as “normal” as possible and do some “pre divorce planning” and exercises in “wealth and asset protection” for the day that comes. Just as they are “playing a game” with you, so you must learn to play the same game in reverse while you protect your assets and wealth and work out a divorce strategy.

Next time, I’ll tell you five simple things you should do immediatley you become suspicious to protect your wealth and assets before the divorce war to follow.

Doctor Ditchem
International Divorce Strategist
Protecting wealth against Divorce!

Well, the critics have been speculating about their marrriage for some time and now the speculation seems to have been on the ball; Madonna and Guy Ritchie have announced their intention to divorce, so now the fun really begins as top divorce lawyers for each will manoevre and argue over the couples combined fortune - estimated at £300 million!

The case will be an interesting twist on the norm of a woman seeking a large sum of money from her wealthy husband with Guy instead probably seeking a large slice of the couples fortune. After all - I am sure the argument will go - he had to put his own career on the back-burner to support Madge’s demanding career and give emotional support to their family.

Guy is one of a growing number of men in the position of benefiting from divorce because of being married to a very successful woman. The law doesn’t discriminate bewteen men and women any longer, just the wealthy and the not!

Incredibly it seems tht Madonna didn’t get Guy to enter into a prenup and so all is open to argument. Sorry Madge, big mistake! In legal circles it is being speculated that if properly handled the divorce should result in Guy receiving the largest payout in British court history, dwarfing the miserable £24 million paid to my old friend and yours, Heather Mills McCartney.

There really is no reason why this should have happened. If Madonna had taken the advice I am sure she was given then a prenup would have been in place and the divorce spoils would be minimised. Madonna has been implicated by Axel Rodriguez’s wife as being responsible for their marriage break-down, (something Madonna has denied); but at least the New York Yankee star had a prenup! Maybe instead of him listening to her, she should have been listening to him!

If you think that Madonna’s wealth is such she won’t miss the occasional £50 or £100 million, just look at what they are reported to own, just real property, not cars or anything else, just real property, all of which is now up for argument;

Madonna is believed to own the couple’s London home, a £7m family townhouse in Marylebone, and a 10-bedroom, £6m property next door as well as two Manhattan apartments overlooking New York’s Central Park worth £2m each.

Guy is thought to own their estate, Ashcombe House, in Wiltshire which has large grounds and is reportedly worth £10m.

It is thought that the couple own the following properties jointly;
Two mews cottages in London worth £2m each (used to house their London staff).
The £2.5m Punchbowl Pub on Farm St in Mayfair, apparently Madonna and Ritchie own it with their friends.
A £3.6m building in London’s West End -the headquarters of the Kabbalah sect;
A five-storey, £1.6m house in Regents Park.
A two-storey mansion in Beverly Hills, California worth £8m.

Divorce planning doesn’t just happen. You have to make it happen, especially if you are “A material girl!”

Doctor Ditchem
International Divorce Strategist
“Protecting wealth against Divorce!”

For this I am grateful to the newssheet, “The Daily Reckoning” which makes for provoking reading in troubled financial times. Anyway, a number of clients have asked me how to get gold in practical terms and I reproduce a portion of a recent article on the subject from the newsheet. Here is the Link for the full article; http://dailyreckoning.com/rpt/goldinvesting.html

Direct ownership. There is nothing like gold bullion, the ultimate expression of pure value. Historically, many civilizations have recognized the permanence of gold’s value. For example, Egyptian civilizations buried vast amounts of gold with deceased pharaohs in the belief that they would be able to use it in the afterlife. Great wars were fought, among other reasons, to pillage stores of gold. Why the allure? The answer: Gold is the only real money, and its value cannot be changed or controlled by government fiat-the underlying reason for governments to go off the gold standard, unfortunately.Gold’s value will rise based on the pure forces of supply and demand, no matter what Mr. Greenspan decrees regarding interest rates or greenbacks in circulation. The big disadvantage to owning gold is that it tends to trade with a wide spread between bid and ask prices. So don’t expect to turn a fast profit. You’ll buy at retail and sell at wholesale, so you’ll need a big price jump just to break even. However, you should not view gold as a speculative asset, but a defensive asset for holding value. Since your dollars are going to fall in value, gold is the best place to preserve value. The best forms for gold ownership are through minted coins: one-ounce South African Krugerrands, Canadian Maple Leafs, or American Eagles.

Gold exchange-traded funds. The recent explosion in exchange traded funds (ETFs) presents an even more interesting way to invest in gold. An ETF is a type of mutual fund that trades on a stock exchange like an ordinary stock. The ETF’s exact portfolio is fixed in advance and does not change. Thus, the two gold ETFs that trade in the United States both hold gold bullion as their one and only asset. You can locate these two ETFs under the symbol “GLD” (for the streetTRACKS Gold Trust) and “IAU” (for the iShares COMEX Gold Trust). Either ETF offers a practical way to hold gold in an investment portfolio.

Gold mutual funds. For people who are hesitant to invest in physical gold, but still desire some exposure to the precious metal, gold mutual funds provide a helpful alternative. These funds hold portfolios of gold stocks-that is, the stocks of companies like Newmont Mining that mine for gold. Newmont is an example of a senior gold stock. A senior is a large, well-capitalized company that has been around several years and has a profitable track record. They tend to own established mines that produce known quantities of gold each year. For many investors, selection of such a company is a more moderate or conservative play (versus picking up cheap shares in fairly young companies).

Junior gold stocks. This level of stock is more speculative. Junior stocks are less likely to own productive mines, and may be exploration plays-with higher potential profits but also with greater risk of loss. Capitalization is likely to be smaller than capitalization of the senior gold stocks. This range of investments is for investors whose risk tolerance is broader, and who accept the possibility of gold-based losses in exchange for the potential for triple-digit gains.

Gold options and futures. For the more sophisticated and experienced investor, options allow you to speculate in gold prices. But in the options market, you can speculate on price movements in either direction. If you buy a call, you are hoping prices will rise. A call fixes the purchase price so the higher that price goes, the greater the margin between your fixed option price and current market price. When you buy a put, you expect the price to fall. Buying options is risky, and more people lose than win. In fact, about three-fourths of all options bought expire worthless. The options market is complex and requires experience and understanding. To generalize, options possess two key traits-one bad and one good. The good trait is that they enable an investor to control a large investment with a small, and limited, amount of money. The bad trait is that options expire within a fixed period of time. Thus, for the buyer time is the enemy because as the expiration date gets closer, an option’s “time value” disappears. Anyone investing in options needs to understand all of the risks before they spend money. The futures market is far too complex for the vast majority of investors. Even experienced options investors recognize the high risk nature of the futures market. Considering the range of ways to get into the gold market, futures trading is the most complex and, while big fortunes could be made, they can also be lost in an instant.

Doctor Ditchem
International Divorce Planner and Strategist
“Protecting wealth against Divorce!”
www.doctorditchem.com

New York Yankees Baseball star Alex Rodriguez, or ‘A Rod’ to his friends, had a prenuptial agreement with his wife, but when the parties went for divorce his wife challenged the terms of the prenuptial agreement. Recently theyapparently reached a settlement. Premarital agreements ( or ‘prenups’) are entered into prior to marriage and may deal with the parties’ present and future property rights. Even in the Uk where the law does not specifically recognise prenups there is still an advantage in having them in my view.

Maybe you are not aware of the “nuances” of prenup law, but any reviewing court must find the premarital agreement is in line with public policy or it’s terms will not be enforced by the court. For this reason it is important that any prenup include a ’severability clause’ or as it is sometimes called a ‘red ink’ clause, meaning that if a court finds one or more terms of the Agreement are NOT in line with public policy they can draw a red line around the offending clause or clauses and the rest will still stand as enforceable because they can be ’severed’ by the court from the offending terms and still stand in their own right.

Usually the party against whom you wish to enforce the terms of the Agreement must have had at least seven days between the date they were first presented with the Agreement and advised to seek independent legal advice and the time of their signature, otherwise any court is likely to find the Agreement is totally unenforceable.

I usually work with clients in the background advising about the terms of the Agreement, and - more inmportantly frankly - how to ’sell’ the idea and it’s terms to the other party; as I say, it is these ’soft issues’ that are often the hardest! These are issues a lawyer cannot help with!

Even in the case of this NY Yankee star where the prenup was challenged it’s existence set a foundation for the argument. If there had been no prenup then the arguments would undoubtedly have been more wide ranging and lsted a whole lot longer!

A good prenup is classic pre-divorce planning; it sets the ground rules before the players ever go onto play!

Doctor Ditchem
International Divorce Planner and Strategist
“Protecting wealth against Divorce!”
www.doctorditchem.com

The consensus is that the UK intervention to “bail out” the banks and the international co-ordinated move to reduce interest rates was a “Watershed” moment.

Let us cut to the chase; Does anyone really think that those “prunes” that are our politicial leaders have any idea what they are doing?
Like Jones in ‘Dads Army’ I suspect behind closed ‘Treasury’ doors they are flying around in circles shouting “Don’t panic, Dont panic!”

The truth is that chickens come home to roost; too much debt, too little real assets - like Gold - to put real value behind your ‘fiat’ paper currency, and too much short termism in the markets have bred the chickens that have “poohed” on everyones’ party and are now at home to roost!

According to reports the US Treasury is getting ready to follow the British example – by nationalizing the banks. If confidence is such a problem I wonder why public ownership of the financial institutions is thought to be such an answer when it has never worked as a policy in any other industry?

Reports suggest that without interest rate cuts outside of the U.K., yesterday’s U.K. events would have caused a fall in the pound – because of the surge in government borrowing associated with it.

Does anyone forsee how long it will take to get rid of all this debt? Is there for instance a requirement that the banks apply a proportion of their future earnings to “redeem” the debt? Or do we just anticipate that we can keep on printing more and more money and everything will be OK? It used to be we regarded the GNP as the main indicator of the wealth of a country; now it seems to be how much domestic borrowing we can “inspire”!

Chickens, home, roost. Words for the future!

Doctor Ditchem - International Divorce Strategist
“Protecting wealth againsrt divorce!”

I read a report in the New York Times ( 30th September 2008) that the Swiss are about to “lift the veil” of their traditional banking secrecy by giving details of many wealthy American customers of the troubled bank UBS to the American Treasury. I hasten to add that the report is according to officials of the US Treasury Department; well they would say that wouldn’t they! I suspect that whatever information is being given it is because of the UBS Banker Birkenfield who has been cooperating with US authorities having pleaded guilty to various charges earlier this year; see below.

UBS, the world’s largest private bank, is under a widening U.S. investigation into whether it helped up to 20,000 wealthy American clients illegally evade taxes by stashing $20 billion in overseas accounts that were not declared to the U.S. IRS.

Swiss law makes disclosure of client data or names a crime unless the Swiss authorities think that the client has committed a serious crime, like money laundering or tax fraud. Switzerland does not consider tax evasion to be a crime, though both countries have largely similar definitions of tax fraud. Note the distinction between evasion and fraud!

The Swiss Banking industry gets a lot of criticism, mainly from aggressive tax authorities in the US and other jurisdictions, because of their maintenance of financial privacy. I have met with a good many Swiss Private bankers in my time and I cannot think of an occasion when any client details were ever exposed to enquiring authorities.

UBS of course is a different animal; it is big, it is present in the U.S. and therefore to continue to deal there it is subject to the leverage of U.S. court orders. Indeed UBS private banker, Bradley C. Birkenfeld pleaded guily in June this year of helping a client conceal about $200 million and has been helping the Feds investigation. Birkenfield is a U.S. citizen. OOPS! Not a good idea! A bit like U.K. citizens being told their information was confidential if they dealt with an off-shore subsidiary of one of the U.K. based banks! Lesson, if you want confidentiality never deal with any branch or Bank based in your own jurisdiction! This is one reason why the best Private Bankers are small exclusive Private Banks with no presence outside of Switzerland.

Of course the key to all asset protection is confidentiality; there is no use in having a banker that treats your affairs with discretion if the manner of your dealings leave a trail emblazoned to the door of your bank. Discretion must be used at every stage and in todays age that can present problems with legislation. Great care must be used. Having said that, the Private Bankers I know have always been helpful in advising about such matters.

Readers will get tired of my emphasis of the need for planning in divorce but when it comes to financial privacy planning is crucial also.

Doctor Ditchem
International Divorce Planner and Strategist
“Protecting wealth against Divorce!”
www.doctorditchem.com

I don’t want to rake over old ground as my past blog coverage of the McCartney divorce has been somewhat controversial, but I couldn’t resist commenting on a press report carried by the Press Association that Heather Mills says she has at last found peace following her divorce from Sir Paul McCartney.

According to the report she is spending a lot of time in the States and indeed says she has donated £550,000 of “vegan” food to one of the poorest neighbourhoods in New York; I just hope they didn’t want meat!

I wish Heather Mills well; really I do! she played the “game” the way the legal system has designed it to be played (taking the wealthy spouse for all she could!) and you can’t blame her for that even if it was a bit distasteful.

I suppose my parting comment would be, if it takes £24.3 million before she could find peace, what hope for the rest of us?

I risk annoying my readers again, but if ever there were - in my opinion - a case that illustrated the need for divorce planning and strategies, I can’t think of it! It could have been a pre-nup, it could have been the use of a family Trust or an off-shore structure but £24.3 million!!! What a wasted opportunity Paul, what a wasted opportunity!

Doctor Ditchem
International Divorce Strategist
“Protecting wealth against divorce!”

Let us consider the ‘financial examination’ of business assets that occurs when divorce happens.

Most non-business peoples’ circumstances and assets are easily identified and valued. Usually easily dealt with in the divorce process. Even in these simple circumstances it may be possible to do various things to minimise the risks to a particular party to the divorce but these cases are by their nature (normally) simple, though that is not to take away from the pain that can be involved.

In my experience the complications arise where one of the Parties is a business person. Then all sorts of other issues arise. These are too numerous to mention here but the normal approach is for one Party - normally the non-business person - to engage a ‘financial expert’, usually an accountant, to examine the finances of the Parties and of the business and “guide” the court by their ‘expert’ evidence and analysis. In some places, such as Canada there are even particular recognised specialists who do this sort of work called “Financial Divorce Specialists” or “Certified Divorce Financial Analysts”. Indeed sometimes the Parties can agree to utilising the services of one as an “independent expert” on behalf of them both to “smooth the process” for the lawyers to be able to reach an out of court settlement that is “fair” to both parties.

Here I ‘nail my colours’ to the mast! This is a very dangerous process for any business person! You MUST NOT abrogate your responsibility to protect yourself and your business during this process or you will have no one to blame but yourself when a grey suited accountant tells lawyers and court their opinion of what is fair and ‘do-able’ as a settlement for you and your business, and believe me, it will NOT be the same as you think!

Over my years I have come across many so-called “experts”, some well meaning and some downright unscrupulous. No matter how well meaning they are, they NEVER have the same perspective as the business owner! Their view is ALWAYS based on the figures on paper. In the more unscrupulous cases these figures are ‘massaged’ to over-estimate the value of a business and it’s profilts, to under-estimate liabilities and risks, to over-estimate the living expenses of one of the Parties - their instructing client of course - and even to forget about such things as bad debt or Tax liabilities! True!

Even in the well meaning cases, where I have no doubt the “expert” was trying to be fair to both Parties, there was an inherent weakness; - they were trying to be fair to both Parties - NOT trying to be accurate in their calculation of the true financial position and risk to a business!

No, you must always engage your own expert to fight your corner! Divorce is branded as “non-fault” but our whole court system, of which the family courts are a part, is adversarial and you need your own ‘gladatorial’ team.

Of course the point I would make again is that “The one who best plans for divorce will have the best divorce!”
I have seen cases where a spouse copied correspondence and financial statements for up to three years before a divorce was initiated! If you are reading this blog or looking at my site, what makes you think your partner isn’t having the same thought as you about the future of your relationship?

If you plan your divorce and strategise how to safe guard your assets and wealth BEFORE divorce is mentioned, believe me, you will have a better divorce than if you do not! You owe it to your business, your staff, your creditors, your suppliers and above all else you owe it to yourself to protect your assets, wealth and business by Planning and Strategising Before Divorce is mentioned!

Doctor Ditchem
International Divorce Planner and Strategist
“Protecting wealth against Divorce!”

According to reports a Cambodian couple decided to avoid the country’s notoriously corrupt and expensive court system in their divorce by dividing their house, literally, in two; thats right, down the middle!

A local newspaper carried pictures of a precariously pitched half of the “stilted” former home of the couple, Meuon Rima and his former wife Nhang. Mr. Rima has apparently now driven his half of the house elsewhere. The paper pointed out that Mr. Rima did not apparently feel the need to do the same with the couples two children! (Both of these he left with his former wife - much to their relief I am sure!) Here is link for those of you who do not beleive me; http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/235071,cambodian-husband-takes-half-the-house-in-divorce–literally.html

Oh how much simpler life would be for us in the West if we had homes that you could do that with!

I know, I know. It is a trivial story and I chose it for its amusement, but then again it also illustrates graphically the pain and trauma the world over caused by divorce and it’s financial aftermath. Sometimes - if you are like me - you may wish for a simpler life; one lived at a slower pace; one with fewer stresses. The truth is that wherever people are in the world and no matter what their life-style, having your hard earner assets wrenched from your fingers is traumatic the moreso when it follows on theloss of the closest and most intimate of relationships. i think the technical term is, “It sucks!”

Well, I may niot be able to stop all the pain but i do aim to help stop the monetary lipo-suction to a great degree at any rate.

Of course perhaps you are so wealthy that even a few million doesn’t make any difference to you, though if the truth be known the wealthy clients I act for treat the protection of their wealth as if it were their blood and it was being sucked by Dracula!

Anyway, the lie is laid bare; even if you lived in some - literal - backwater where your house stood on stilts, when the chips are down you still wouldn’t want to lose it!

Doctor Ditchem
International Divorce Planner and Strategist
“Protecting wealth against Divorce!”
www.doctorditchem.com

It is no secret that sometimes in my role as pre-divorce planner and strategist I sometimes advise clients to incorporate business interests off-shore as a means to protect wealth and assets against divorce.

So far as my US clients are concerned I am often asked what is the point of this and whether there is any tax advantage in doing so.

Without disparaging the many so-called experts who offer these services to US clients in the name of tax savings, maybe it would help if I clarified some points - so far as US citizens are concerned;

US citizens are taxed on their worldwide income including income from interest and dividends and whether these arise ‘onshore’ or ‘offshore’. (It is a little known fact that US citizens share this tax treatment with very few other countries, one being Iran!) The US allows money and assets to be moved offshore but full disclosure is required and the US has specialsit teams in the IRS dedicated to ensuring compliance with legislation and preventing money laundering and other criminal activity, including tax evasion.

Sometimes in light of these facts a US client will ask whether there is any advantage in setting up such a structure and the answer is yes, because tax is only one area of consideration. Particularly in the US with it’s highly litigious culture there are many other would be litigators as well as the IRS, including disaffected spouses. Offshore trusts and accounts can be an excellent way for US citizens to securely protect assets. They offer a lot of financial privacy and protection from such people as an ex-spouse or ex-client both now and in the future. As long as a US client complies with all legal requirements of full disclosure etc then there is nothing illegal in setting up or holding such structures which can be a very effective form of protection from litigious attack whether in Family disputes or otherwise.

Often these Trusts are structured so that they are irrevocable for a finite period of time, during which the creator of the Trust, called the Grantor, will not be the direct beneficiary of the Trust. Providing at the end of the term of the Trust there is no threat to the assets, then they can be returned to the Grantor if that is desired or they can be carried on in the Trust for a further term.

Apart from actually protecting the assets in the Trust from attack, the fact they are so protected often itself is a dis-incentive to court proceedings being issued in the first place.

So, US citizens still have a lot to be gained by the use of Off-shore structures, and perhaps even more to loose if they don’t use them.

Of course in other countries which do NOT tax on a citizens world-wide income there may also be tax advantages in the use of Off-shore structures, but that is a seperate matter.

Doctor Ditchem
International Divorce Planner and Strategist
“Protecting wealth against Divorce!”
www.doctorditchem.com