The simple answer is yes. They must be disclosed along with all the other assets in the marriage, and the starting point is that your spouse must give evaluation for their business assets and disclose the last two years’ accounts to give an idea of what’s there. Whether you actually have a claim on the business will depend on the value and the nature of the business itself. Some businesses are purely a means of generating income so you’re unlikely to get any extra capital from the settlement for your spouse’s business. An example of that is subcontractors who run their income through a limited company. Some businesses, however, do have capital assets in them. They can potentially be used towards reaching a settlement. Again, it depends on the nature and value of those assets. An example of that would be a business that perhaps owns a number of properties that they operated from you might be able to sell or mortgage properties to raise capital. Business isn’t always going to be sold if it’s going to be detrimental to the business itself because obviously that is your spouse’s living and if their livelihood’s affected it will have a negative impact on the overall settlement. In most cases where there’s a business you’re going to need to get an accountant’s advice on the value on how best to release capital or whether it can be released at all.
