FAQs: Financial Disclosure

Everything that forms part of your shared financial picture: real estate, bank accounts, investments, registered accounts, vehicles, business interests, pensions, and liabilities including mortgages and loans. Bank statements and income information are also typically required. Pre-marriage assets and inheritances are included even if they may ultimately be excluded from the division. Your customised disclosure checklist from the Transitions Meeting will walk you through every category.

This is more common than people expect, particularly when one spouse has managed the household finances throughout the marriage. Your Divorce Resolution Expert will go through each item with you, explain what it means, and help you understand what you are looking at. Part of Fairway's role is to ensure that both parties leave the disclosure stage with a genuine understanding of the complete financial picture. If needed, a family lawyer can provide additional legal advice alongside the process.

Fairway's experts know what a complete financial disclosure looks like, and they know where gaps tend to appear. Your divorce mediator will ask for additional information if something seems inconsistent. Full disclosure is a condition of the INR™ process, and the process does not proceed until both parties have met that standard.

The timing depends on how quickly information is gathered and shared. Some situations are straightforward, while others involve additional details such as business interests, pensions, or multiple properties. Your Divorce Resolution Expert will outline what is needed and help keep the process moving forward.

Everything needs to be disclosed. What may vary is how certain items are treated in the division. For example, a pre-marriage asset may ultimately be excluded from equalization, but it still needs to be on the table so that both parties can see the full picture and make an informed decision about how it is handled. Excluding something from disclosure and excluding it from division are two very different things.

Your Divorce Resolution Expert compiles everything into a joint net worth statement, the Financial Pie™. Both spouses then meet individually with their expert to review every asset and liability and confirm the values. Nothing moves to division until both parties have reached consensus on what everything is worth. That consensus stage is what protects both of you in the negotiations that follow.